****

"Uhhh…what happened?" Misty groaned, rubbing her head. She looked around. Jesse, James and Ash were nowhere in sight.

"Brock? Oh no…BROCK! Wake up!" she cried when she saw him lying behind her. After he didn't move for a couple of minutes she let her tears free and buried her face in his chest.

"Misty...daijobu desu ka?"

"Huh?"

Misty raised her face, only to be greeted by a very alive Brock. She was overjoyed. She hugged him and planted a kiss on his lips. He was caught off guard by this last act, but he just closed his eyes and kissed her back. They stopped and looked at one another. He leaned up and kissed the tip off her nose. She closed her eyes and sighed. It was his turn to 'kiss' her now...and that's exactly what he did. Her hands were around his neck as she lay on top of him. His hands were 'gentlemanly' placed around her waist.

And that's they way they stayed.

****

Butch smiled as he peeked through the bushes again. He loved seeing people show their affection toward each other. Just seconds earlier she was crying on his chest. Now they were kissing like it was their last five minutes on the planet. He headed back to the cave where everything was set up with a smile on his face. It disappeared when he entered the room and saw Cassidy threatening their prisoners.

Jesse and James were still knocked out but that other kid they picked up was rambling on and on about nothing.

"There. All of `em tied up and in their respective boxes. There's no way any of them can escape." Cassidy said, just finishing tying up James. "Did you get the uniforms?"

"Sure ...um, the uniforms," Butch said, trying to come up with an excuse. He knew those two kids were wearing them.

"Are you sure we packed them?"

"Of course we did. Remember, it's all part of the plan," she sneered.

"Iie, I don't remember."

"Mou...yosh," she sighed and flopped down on the bench. "Boss sent us here to find Jesse and James and kil-"

"Should he be listening to this?" Butch said, pointing to Ash.

"Remember the boxes they're in are sound proof," said as she got up and knocked on the top of the plastic cell. "He can't hear what we're saying unless we talk through the intercom."

Butch just stared at her blankly.

"Anyway," she said, sitting on the bench again. "We're supposed to kill those two. He didn't say how so I came up with a plan, which I'll tell you now. I was planning on putting them in the new T.R. uniforms and use the power Boss so graciously gave me to brainwash them. Then we'd train them and make them the most ruthless T.R. members ever. So ruthless that they go on a killing spree, killing everyone in sight and eventually killing each other." She lay down on her back and put her head in his lap, much to his disgust.

"Ja, I ran this past Boss, when you were loading the balloon, and he just nodded and handed me the new recruits uniforms. I took that as affirmative and went on my way," she finished, examining her nails.

"I guess since you couldn't find the uniforms and they're wearing their old ones, then we won't change their appearance," she said getting up and walking over to where their boxes were.

"What are you saying?" he said slowly as he stood, not fully understand the whole point of her plan.

"Instead we'll - uhh, I'll let them keep the fighting part of their memory and one word will fill the rest of the space," she said maliciously. Her eyes glowed like blue fire and her blond pigtails bounced when she laughed like her creation was alive.

"What word is that?"

Revenge was the last thing he heard before his brown eyes went blank and he became her slave.

****

They had decided to start their trek into the woods from behind the balloon. That was where the second smoke bomb had come from. They didn't realize how close they were to finding their friends. Their own death was even closer, so close in fact that Shinigami's violet eyes watched their every move with amusement as he let rounds of silent, maniacal laughter float through the breeze that danced with his chestnut braid.

"Why are we in these again?" Brock asked, adjusting his mask.

"We needed to change so that they wouldn't recognize our clothes," Misty answered.

"That's it?"

"Well, we need to find their base and who knows how many of them there might be. I just thought it was a good idea to blend in a little more. That and I just feel so damn sexy . . ." Misty boasted.

"Did you hear that," she whispered, squatting behind a bush. Brock squatted behind a boulder a little bit away.

"It must be coming from that cave over there," she whispered. Brock signaled for her to be quiet as a second scream filled the forest. A third scream echoed from the cave soon after.

/How many people are in there? Three screams. Each scream different than the one before/ she thought and decided to investigate.

Brock was thinking of a strategy when he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He looked over and saw Misty sneaking over to the cave entrance...and a man with aqua hair and lifeless brown eyes following close behind her. Brock stood up and got in attack position, in case Misty had any problems.

He was distracted when he saw a sparkle of red and a dash of blue in the shadows next to him. He dismissed it and concentrated on making sure that Misty got to the cave without any problems. An explosion of white filled his eyes and he sunk to the ground.

"Uhhhnn..."

"Poor boy, and he looked so good in that uniform," she said, her comatose blue eyes sparkling with pure evil. He knelt next to the unconscious youth to make sure he was out.

"What should we do with him," he said, standing and running his fingers through his blue hair that had fallen over his vile green eyes.

"I say we tie him to that tree over there and if Butch finds him then-"

She stopped and made a cutting motion in front of her neck.

"I love it when you're unnecessarily cruel," he said, pushing her red hair behind her shoulders. He started to kiss her neck when something sharp stabbed his side.

Life flashed in his eyes - it wasn't very strong but it was there. He was no longer under Cassidy's control.

"Why?" he asked, slowly falling to his knees. He looked up and saw Jesse holding a bloody knife, smirking at him. He tried to read her eyes but all they showed was the same cruelty he had mentioned before.
He then knew she was not in control of herself.

/I'll be all right. That is, if I don't bleed to death/ he thought and felt himself grow dizzy from loss of blood. Jesse knelt beside him, still smirking. She took him by the shoulders and carefully placed him on the cool earth.

"Hush now. Save your energy. Make sure you die before I come back," she told him, bringing some emotion into her voice. "Cause if you're not dead then by then - I'll kill you...koibito." With that she got up and tied Brock to the tree, leaving him with a few show-and-tell cuts of his own. She strategically placed the knife just far enough that Brock wouldn't be able to reach it when he came to. She double checked everything and left for the cave.

As soon as she was out of sight, James painfully pulled himself over to the knife. With all his strength he squirmed over to Brock and cut the ropes that held him, then he lay there and stared up at the night sky.

"Giovanni, you will rue the day that you put that chip in Cassidy. I, James Roquet, will personally make sure that you regret ever forcing your people to agree to such horrors. Tonight your creation will die."
He closed one eye and he winced at the unbearable pain that passed in waves up his side.

"You fool. Don't you know by now that Giovanni doesn't posses the power to control all of you peons without going crazy? He couldn't hold a match to me, so I crushed him. Crushed by his creation. If you thought Cassidy was bad ...you better watch out boy, or I'll crush you too."

An evil cackle filled the air after the unseen girl finished her speech and James closed his eyes.

/Whoever she is, she'll pay dearly for doing this to my only friends/ he silently promised. He remembered something from Pokemon Health and Medicine class.

/Some old myth about focusing your energy. K'so! Why can't I remember...chotto matte. 'If you focus all your energy on something you get a sort of energy beam. You also glow a special color. Each color has a Greek deity as it's protector and different colors mean different things.' What the Hell does that have to do with Pokemon?/ He shrugged as he mentally cursed himself and tried to focus his energy into saving his friends, only half believing in the myth. With his eyes closed he couldn't see that he had started to glow.

"Whoa," he breathed when he opened his eyes and saw that the myth was true. "Blue. Let's see. My guardian is Poseidon, so I have water-based powers. Cool. Ahhhhh!" He curled himself in a ball and cried out in pain. He closed his eyes and a tear ran down his cheek as he focused all his mental powers into healing himself. He knew it would take a while without the help of Jesse's power, because she completed him. That much he knew. He focused on healing...and tuning out the screams.

****

tbc...