One of Plasma's Many Faces


Benga and his two friends, Janna and Gaius, try to capture a former Neo Plasma grunt for the local police in an effort to impress Alder. Nathan and Church swoop in to save the day when it inevitably goes wrong—and Church meets Lacey, a former Neo Plasma grunt.


Timeline: A few months after the end of Black 2 to seven years after the end of Black 2. So, uh, yeah lol. Church is 24 by the end of this.

Setting: Unova

Notes: Strong language, mild-to-moderate violence, mild blood, minor character death. LONG lol.

Also, I just want to warn that I have been working on this oneshot for ever since I originally published Hidden Grottos, and I basically just decided that I was finishing it tonight. I hope it's still good, but that's why it's so long and may seem rushed and weird at parts. Also, reading the previous chapter may help explain Church and Nathan being on such good terms. Anyway, hope it's still enjoyable!

Characters: Benga, Janna (OC), Gaius (OC), Lacey (OC), Zinzolin, Nathan (Nate), Churchill (Church), Hilbert (Hil)

Prerequisite Reading: Black, Black 2


"They spotted a Neo Plasma fugitive? Here? In Floccesy?!" Janna's icy eyes widened in shock and she gripped Gaius by his shoulder, wrinkling the dark, green cardigan draped over him. Rattling him unknowingly in her apprehensive wonder, she squeaked, "But what would they want here?!"

"Dunno, but they were, Janna! Keep up!" Benga huffed at her as he crossed his arms. Tossing his head to throw a thick lock of red hair from his face, he smugly grinned and raised his chin at her. He was proud of himself, indeed, for the plan he had cooked up, as they stood in the deceivingly calm plains of the Floccesy Ranch. "Besides, what do we gotta fear from 'em? Ghetsis is gone and—"

"Your granddad would kill us if he heard you saying his name so casually," Gaius dryly cut Benga off, his lip twitching slightly from irritation with Janna's frantic hold. Searing her with his auburn gaze, he batted her away at last when he lost his patience and shook out his jacket. Smoothing his slick, black hair to regain his composure, he carried on in an even tone as if he had never been interrupted. "But I'm gonna guess you're telling us this because you have some Pidove-brained idea you want us to take part in."

"It's not Pidove-brained!" Benga retorted with a voice crack, losing his cool immediately by flattening his arms to his sides in fists. His hair flopped into his face and blocked his line of sight entirely. Annoyedly pushing it from view, he scowled at Gaius. "They said she was this woman that they caught on the Frigate, but she escaped later. They think she's probably been usin' the woods out near the Ranch to try and lay low 'til she can get outta dodge by havin' someone sketchy ferry her out the country."

Gaius and Janna both exchanged a look, and then glanced over their shoulders, and around themselves. As if to dramatically emphasize the point, the breeze picked up and rolled over the grassy fields around them. Sighing and pressing a palm to his forehead, Gaius defeatedly eyed the ground. "Don't tell me we're here at the Ranch to try and—"

"Catch her? Hell yeah!" Benga beamed and bounced from foot to foot, the strap of Poké Balls around his neck clacking against one another. Adjusting his black backpack once he was done, he cleared his throat and regarded them triumphantly once more. "C'mon, we've all got pokémon! We've beaten the gym leaders! What's just one scared lil' Neo Plasma girl gonna do?"

"Uh… I dunno about that, Benga…" Janna nervously swallowed and drew her hands together, anxiously rubbing them together. After a second, she puffed and pulled her white, furry jacket a little closer over herself. "Didn't they say that… that Ghetsis guy did a lot of the stuff he did on his own? And he was an old, crippled man!"

"Yeah, but it's three on one! C'mon, Janna," Benga whined, "I know you're kinda… skittish… but think about how good it felt when you beat the gym leaders! Remember that?" He did. She had agonized before each and every battle with one, training tediously for hours in her anxiety, only to blaze through their teams as if they hadn't been there at all. She was a small girl, dressed in a black, calf-length dress that was obscured by that thick, fuzzy jacket. Platinum hair framed her face and made her azure eyes absolutely piercing. Saying that to say, she didn't look very threatening, but there was something about her expression that quietly spoke of her power. "Now, imagine beating a fugitive, and draggin' 'em back to Floccesy for arrest! Wouldn't that be something?" And then Grampa might finally let me go challenge the Black Tower. Pfft, I'll show him to think I'm not strong enough. I'll beat the Tower and then I'll take the Champion title, just like him!

"I suppose nothing I say is going to stop you, is it?" Gaius dramatically wiped his forehead and rolled his eyes, but a smirk played at his pale lips, betraying his mischievous intrigue. Surreptitiously dropping a hand to the left pocket of his jeans, he thumbed a Poké Ball he had stored there. "…Fine. Do you know anything other than she's probably in the woods somewhere?"

With a playful glint in his eyes, Benga nodded vigorously. "There's this old path behind the Ranch! It's all grown over and hardly anyone goes back there anymore! I feel like if anyone was tryin' to hide, they'd be way back there somewhere! 'Sides, I can send out Garchomp to help us out. He can cut through anything!"

"You coming, Janna?" Gaius asked her as he turned an expectant, patient look on her, folding his hands behind his back. He had such a polite, calm aura, but Benga knew there was so much more to his friend than that; the quietness and self-discipline in his nature would fade as soon as anything exciting happened, and Benga was counting on that trait of his right about then as he, too, hopefully eyed Janna. She dipped her head at last under the pressure of both their stares and rubbed the back of her head.

"Well… I guess if it's with you two," she reluctantly agreed.

"Awesome! Then it's settled! Think of how proud Ald—I mean, everyone will be once we get back with this!" Benga joyously pumped a fist in the air, and then raced across the fields, heading for that break in the tree line that signaled the start of the overgrown, grassy path.

"H-hey, wait!" Janna yelped as she and Gaius scrambled after him. Benga smirked over his shoulder at them and, in his fervor, failed to notice the weak, wooden fence blocking his way onto that overgrown path, nor the sign on its front warning people not to venture into it. His knees collided with the low fence and he was launched over it, landing unceremoniously on his chin and palms.

Tasting the unpleasant tang of blood, Benga grimaced and rubbed a hand over his face, noting that he must have busted his lip from the fall. Shortly after, he heard the pounding of shoes as Janna and Gaius undoubtedly jumped the fence to get to him. Each grabbed an arm of his and hauled him up.

"Hey, you might wanna try watching where you're going next time," Gaius wryly muttered, though his face was expressionless with severity. Before he had a chance to dig into his bag for what Benga assumed would be some sort of handkerchief, Janna produced a box of tissues from her own white backpack.

Frustrated with their coddling, Benga shouldered them away and puffed. "I'm fine!" he exclaimed to them, wiping away the blood from his lip and onto his black, ripped pants. Janna gave him a very disapproving glare as he did, but he waved her off as he pointed ahead, into the thick undergrowth. A bush rustled and he heard the snapping of tree branches. "Did you see that?" Benga pressed urgently, grabbing Gaius by his shoulder, and shaking him.

"First of all, why do you two keep doing that?" Gaius hissed, brushing him off. "Second of all, this place is crawling with pokémon, it was probably just a wild Flaaffy or something. Had you paused to read the sign…" Gaius pointedly paused, "then you would have noticed this place was barred from entry because it hasn't been maintained at all. They don't know what wild pokémon are lurking out here… Could be something really dangerous, Benga."

"This place makes me feel claustrophobic…" Janna complained, frowning at the messy, twisting path of grass ahead. "And… I am not dressed for this."

"Wild Flaaffy don't scare me, Gaius!" Benga shot back at him, scurrying away from them and snatching a Poké Ball from around his neck. Garchomp doesn't care about an Electric-type! And we just got here! We can't give up yet! "Garchomp laughs in the face of just about anything! Ha-ha-ha!"

He thought he heard more snapping of twigs and rustling of bushes but ignored them in favor of trying to screen Gaius and Janna for their reactions. Come on, guys, just come with me! he impatiently thought. I know it's not smart to go on my own… so, I need you so I can do this! Grampa's never gonna let me take on the Black Tower at this rate! I need this! Yet, Gaius and Janna both suddenly balked, eyes stretching wide, and they looked up and over his head.

"Um, Benga?" Gaius whispered. "Don't… freak out, but—"

"That's the biggest Gigalith I've ever seen!" Janna all but screamed, covering her face and cowering.

"I literally just said don't freak out, and you weren't even the one I was talking to!" Gaius snapped at her in his panic.

Looking up slowly with a sense of dread as he noticed the shadow that had befallen him, Benga paled as he saw the hulking Rock-type glaring down at him with soulless, empty eyes. It raised a foot and he yelped, rolling out from beneath the massive sole. It slammed the ground just a few, uncomfortable centimeters from his legs as he scrambled back to his feet, throwing hands protectively out in front of Gaius and Janna both. "Hey! Get back, already!" Benga called lamely at it. What's a Gigalith doing out here? They don't live here… Hell, I've never even heard of a wild Gigalith outside of a cave—

The Gigalith lumbered closer and that snapped Benga from his stupor. Pitching Garchomp's Poké Ball, he called to Janna and Gaius, "Hey, send out something?"

As Garchomp stood formidably ahead of him, threateningly snarling at the opponent, and waving its bladed arms, Benga saw that Janna had frozen stiff in panic, and Gaius was trying to get her to move her feet. At Benga's stupid stare, Gaius glared at him and shot, "What are you doing? Battle that thing so it doesn't hurt her!"

"R-right!" Benga swiftly turned his attention back to the battle at hand. "Garchomp, Earth—ow!" He jumped away as he heard growling and felt something snap at his calf. Looking down, he blanched and scrambled away from a Mightyena, whose crushing jaws were far too close for comfort and whose scarlet eyes burned with hatred.

"Who are you?" a feminine voice called from ahead. Benga jerked his head just in time to see his Garchomp take the initiative to attack the Gigalith on its own, violently digging into the earth with its shovel-like claws and rocketing underground at the Rock-type. The voice came from a figure dressed in black, who easily jumped away from the crumbling earth around the Gigalith, landing next to the Mightyena with practiced precision. Cutting her minty eyes at him, most of her olive-skinned face obscured by a mask, she tossed a leg over the back of the Mightyena and grabbed fistfuls of its thick, dusky fur. As Garchomp burst from the earth and struck the Gigalith, knocking it to its side with a force that made the earth tremor and Benga fall to his rear, the masked woman spat, "Get out of here! Leave!"

"You're her, aren't you?" Benga retorted furiously, jumping back up, a smirk painting his face. "You're that woman they're lookin' for from the Frigate!" Beaming, he shouted, "Garchomp, get back over here!"

Yet, it seemed the woman was uninterested in battling by traditional means. Rather than ordering her Gigalith alone, she directed the Mightyena away, and then tossed another five pokémon free of their Poké Balls. Not only was that beyond the team limit of six when considering her Mightyena and Gigalith, but the pokémon she revealed were far tougher than he could have anticipated… Escavalier, Aggron, Beartic, Walrein, and Drifblim. Garchomp retreated to Benga's side, and the Gigalith hauled itself back upright with a roar that Benga fleetingly worried might deafen him. The Mightyena, meanwhile, threw its head back and howled to the sky.

"You shouldn't have come here," the woman hollered in a broken voice across the space between them as her pokémon mobilized in front of her. "Get out. Now! Or you'll regret it!"

She's being defensive… Benga realized with a slight frown. He reached a hand up to clasp his fingers around the Poké Balls looping his neck. "Or wha—?" he started to taunt her, only to feel Gaius grab him by his shoulder and spin him around.

"Benga!" Gaius snarled, the polite edge from earlier long gone. "What are you doing? Let's get the hell out of here! I wasn't expecting her to have all of that!" Still clutching Benga's shoulder, Gaius used his free hand to shake Janna again, who trembled like a leaf in the breeze as she eyed the fierce, opposing team. "Janna!" he frustratedly exclaimed. "Snap out of it, already, we gotta go!"

"You two get outta here!" Benga called as he wrenched his shoulder free. Aligning his crimson gaze with the woman's, he licked his lips. "I've gotta beat her!"

"Last warning!" the woman coldly yelled again. "Get out of here, or else!" Her Mightyena snapped its jaws cruelly, slobber dribbling from its muzzle, as if for emphasis.

"Benga!" Gaius desperately cried again. "Please, dude, let's just go! I don't wanna leave you here to fight her alone, but we—I—we have to go, let the police deal with this, man, that's what they're here for! I thought you were exaggerating earlier, and we'd just find her and then run back to Floccesy to tell—"

"Time's up," the woman cut him off. She raised a hand and shouted something Benga didn't comprehend, but clearly, her pokémon did, as each one either raised an extremity or opened its jaw to prep some sort of devastating attack. Benga's eyes widened as the severity of their situation dawned on him, and frantically tossed his strip of Poké Balls to free the rest of his team. A horrible, blinding flash of light melded with the red glow of the Poké Balls as they opened, and Benga whirled around and wrapped his arms around Gaius and Janna both, pulling them into something of a bearhug as he pulled them all to the ground. Fear he had never known before coursed through him as he just hoped against all hope that they would be okay…

Yet, the strident lights dissipated as quickly as they had come with a loud bang. Upon discovering he, Gaius, and Janna were all still in one piece, Benga shakily sat up and panted in shock as the smoke cleared and revealed an all-too familiar emerald, quadruped pokémon, a man in slick black and a fluttering, thin blue jacket astride its back. To his left, a redheaded man on an Arcanine stood steadfast. Flanking them and roaring at the opponents, Benga's pokémon—his Garchomp, Volcarona, Dragonite, Metagross, Slaking, and Tropius—roared or clanged body parts together in a bid to disorient the opposing team.

Champion Nathan tossed a glance over his shoulder from where he was seated upon Virizion's back, a scathing, furious glare that Benga felt might smite him if he stared for too long. "What the hell are you doing?" Nathan snarled. "Benga, is that you?"

Although shrinking under his glare, Benga saw the woman on the Mightyena start to make a run for it out the corner of his eye, and he pointed vigorously after her. "H-hey! She's getting away!"

Whipping his head back to see her, Nathan growled, and turned to the man on the Arcanine beside him. "Church, catch her!"

Elite Four Church? Benga blinked and was a little ashamed to admit he hadn't recognized him at first. Granted, he hadn't seen Church much, only on a couple of his visits through the Pokémon League, but still… A curt nod was all Church responded with before his Arcanine sailed over Nathan and Virizion in a graceful arc, speeding after the woman on the Mightyena with an Extreme Speed.

"Recall your pokémon!" Nathan howled over his shoulder at Benga.

Benga swallowed anxiously as he stumbled forward to look for his strap of Poké Balls, finding it beneath his Garchomp's feet. "But all those really strong pokémon, don't you need help—"

"Recall them!" Nathan ordered, issuing him another testy glare. "Don't argue with me, Benga! You're in no position to fight this battle! Thank you!" Turning back to the opposing pokémon, Nathan pitched his Zoroark free. She lowered her head and seemed to assess the situation ahead as Benga did as he was told, recalling his team to their Poké Balls. All of a sudden, the battlefield darkened in a cloud of shadow, and Nathan's Zoroark vanished into the sea of blackness. The murkiness crept up around the woman's pokémon and they shuffled backward, looking much less enthused to battle.

"Thank Arceus he was here… No idea why Champion Nathan was out here in Floccesy, but I'm so glad," Benga heard Gaius breathe in relief behind him. Reluctantly tearing his eyes from the battlefield, Benga glanced back at his friends, sitting up on the ground now, and held out a hand in offering to help them up. Gaius took one look at him, and practically bared his teeth. "Oh, now you want to help!" Rolling his eyes, he groaned and moved so that he was standing, partially hauling the frozen Janna to her feet. Shamefacedly watching them and peeking at Nathan's battle once more before leaving him to it, Benga hung his head and decided to silently follow Gaius as he and Janna started to head back for the gate out of the area.


Mightyena were known for speed, but nowhere near as much as Arcanine were. Church caught up to the woman easily and with another Extreme Speed from his Arcanine, knocked her clear of the pokémon effortlessly. Bowled over, the Mightyena snarled and flailed its paws, and once it returned to its feet, it snapped fangs at Arcanine's ears. Arcanine, even without prompting from Church, drew a mighty paw across the opponent's muzzle and barked furiously at them. Whimpering but scowling hatefully, the Mightyena was finally subdued, watching intently but making no moves to assist its trainer as Church leapt from the Arcanine's back and snatched her arms in his. Tucking her arms behind her back, he expected to be able to easily cuff her and then bring her back to Nathan on Arcanine, but she screamed and threw all her weight against him, knocking them both to the ground.

Surprised and annoyed, Church vice-gripped her arms, refusing to let go. "Hey, hey, hey!" he grunted through gritted teeth. "Calm down, calm, calm!" How the hell did I let Nathan drag me into this? Not only did he hate physical altercations, but he wasn't exactly built for them, either, and even this lean woman was putting up one hell of a fight, to the point he barely kept hold of her. After a few seconds of struggle that felt like an eternity, though, they finally fell still in the dirt, each of them panting dazedly.

"Get off me!" she screamed at him, her voice breaking partway through. That gave Church some pause, and he confusedly looked her over, noticing that her green eyes were wide as saucers, tears forming there. She weakly jerked her arms again and then yelped in pain, defeatedly resting her head against the soil at last. "Please, let me go, I—I don't want to die—I'm sorry!"

"What are you…" Church huffed, "talking about?" Wincing as he relied strictly on his legs to pull them both from the ground, he noticed her legs buckled under her own weight. Swiftly retrieving the handcuffs from his belt, Church fitted them over her wrists with some struggle, clicking them into place at last. She collapsed to her knees as he accidentally let her go, and he shook his head. "What are you talking about?" he repeated breathlessly. "Nobody's dying today. You're getting arrested," he snorted amusedly, "for, y'know… assisting a terrorist organization, but that's not gonna get you killed, and most definitely not by me. I'm not some judge, jury, and executioner. Anyway, you—"

His attempt to try to clumsily recite her rights that he had been asked to say in the event of making such an arrest was cut off by her spitting at his face. He dodged it and grimaced, but still, she cut those fearful eyes at him and brokenly snapped, "You can't fool me! Z-Zinzolin and Ghetsis told me all about you, and the League, and how you'll torture anyone that was in Team Plasma—let me go!" She struggled again, but all that succeeded in doing was knocking her to the ground painfully on her right elbow, causing her to squeak in pain again. "H-how you killed Ghetsis, and…"

"I'm gonna be honest," Church huffed, cracking a nervous grin, "I have no idea what you are talking about. This isn't the middle ages. Nobody's gonna get the iron maiden or throw you in the brass bull. Also, we didn't kill Ghetsis. Ghetsis escaped the Giant Chasm… Though, according to Consul Hil, he was… seizing… and likely died of natural causes shortl—"

She spat at him again as she wrestled to sit upright once more. All she really succeeded in doing was hitting her head harshly against the ground, stilling herself at last. Between laborious pants for breath, she shivered and whimpered, "No… humans are… humans are cruel, and… and Ghetsis… Zinzolin said…" Her teeth chattered as she trailed off, huffing like she couldn't find enough oxygen in the air to support herself. The look of sheer terror on her face frightened Church… He really didn't think he was that scary, and more than that, the stuff she was saying just didn't make sense… He concernedly looked her over and shook his head. This suddenly felt much sadder than he had expected it to.

"Maybe all humans on the Frigate were cruel," Church muttered, "but not everyone in the world's the same. I'm just… I'm just gonna help you up now, okay? Don't fight me, I don't want you to hurt yourself worse." He staggered over to her and grabbed her cuffed wrists with one hand, using his other to help support her shoulders as she weakly scrambled to her feet. He realized, with his close-up perspective now that she was subdued, that her olive skin was marred with various scars, the freshest of which looked like a deep laceration over the left of her neck that had only recently healed.

To his words, she merely looked away from him. "Just shut up and take me," she growled, still sounding as defeated as before. "My Poké Balls are in my pockets. Take them and shut up."

She… really believes this is it, doesn't she? Church frowned at her and shook his head. "You said something about Zinzolin. Is he out here in the forest?"

"You're not getting him, too!" she fiercely snarled, flaring to life again by throwing her shoulders against him. He yelped as she inadvertently bent his right wrist at an awkward angle in the struggle, and yet again, she crashed to her side. "Fuck!" she whimpered, falling still all over again. Her Mightyena lunged forward abruptly and snarled at Church, snapping its jaws protectively. Blinking, Church discovered what he had previously mistaken for hatred or rage in the pokémon's eyes was fear in action. Much like how Lacey—that was the girl's name, she hadn't said it yet, but he knew that to be true from the mission debrief before they had arrived in Floccesy—violently feared him, so did her pokémon. That realization gave Church some pause and he gnawed his lower lip, only watching as Arcanine darted forward to growl and urge the Mightyena away again. Some part of him got the sense that, as he looked over the pretty, yet scarred and terrified woman against the ground, she had been as much a victim of Ghetsis' abuse as a perpetrator of it.

"Listen," Church urgently pressed as he stepped around her, kneeling in front of her. He pressed a hand over his chest. "I know you don't trust me. That's okay, but… I'm not here to hurt you," he insisted with as much conviction as he could manage, putting on that brilliant smile, and tilting his head in a way he hoped might help relax her. "Nobody's going to hurt you. Okay? But I can't leave you out here. That's just not… But listen, we can help you. Even if you have some crimes to answer for, Lacey, you'll be safe. You won't have anyone hunting you down for fun like Benga back there and you won't have anyone like Ghetsis or Zinzolin ordering you around. You'll have a place to sleep… Have you been sleeping in the forest out here since the Frigate?"

There was a long pause where she simply gawked at him, but then… a tiny nod from her. That delighted Church to see he was getting through to her in some capacity.

"You'll have somewhere warm and decent to sleep," Church repeated with a slight chuckle. "I mean, I'm sure even if you had somewhere decent on the Frigate, it was cold, right? I was just there for a day and, whew…" Church half-grimaced at the uncomfortable memory of the attack on the Frigate, which brought with it a slew of turbulent emotions. Thankfully, with the time since then, he'd gotten good at pushing them down when he didn't want to acknowledge them. Carrying on, he snickered and added, "Also, maybe not the best food, but hey, you don't have to cook."

"You're trying to talk me into thinking jail is a great place and that they won't hurt me," Lacey muttered, "and you think I'm supposed to believe that?"

"I never said it was a great place," Church shrugged. "It's still jail. You still hurt a lot of people, I'm sure. But there's a reason they're called 'corrections facilities' in their titles and not just 'jail.'" Sighing, he shook his head. "We want to help you. Helping you helps us, because it means you stop hurting people and we don't have to police you. We don't get anything out of hurting you or holding you hostage forever."

Giving him a Deerling-in-headlights stare, she panted a bit before mumbling, "I… guess you don't have much to get out of keeping me, do you… That costs resources and time…"

I wouldn't have put it like that, but… What odd wording. Just how did Ghetsis run that damn Frigate? "Yeah, see?" Church beamed. "Now, can I get your Poké Balls to put your friends away, maybe you help us find Zinzolin, and we take you in? I promise, nobody's going to hurt you."

She swallowed hard and clenched her eyes shut, having paled as white as a sheet, he realized. It seemed to take all of her energy to say, "Okay… Zinzolin is deeper in the forest… he's very sick… Will they not harm him, either?"

"Of course not. Whatever's wrong with him, he'll get the help he needs before we get into all the legal stuff," Church explained gently.

"Good… he's dying…" She paused to lick her clammy lips and it seemed as if all the tension and will to fight evaporated from her body. Her muscles slacked and her eyes were half-lidded then. "I've been trying so hard to find a way to save him… You mean that they just… they will just help him? Like that?" She tensed slightly again. "Not that I have anything over your head, but you're not lying…?"

Church huffed as he tried to think of a way to convince her. "Well," he uncomfortably started, "I don't like to point this out, but if I wanted to, I could have just ignored everything you said, had Arcanine knock you out, cuffed you and been on my way. Me trying to convince you everything's gonna be alright was a lot more effort." He rubbed a bruise forming on one of his arms where she had hit him, snorting, "And also more painful. But," he raised a finger at her, "I… I really don't like seeing anyone that scared. Much less of me. Now, c'mon, let me help you up and don't hit me, and we'll get Zinzolin and get you out of here."

"Okay… I'm sorry, I never caught your name…?"

"Churchill. But most just call me Church."

"Ah… Lacey… Though, you knew that…"


Having gathered all of Lacey's pokémon back in their Poké Balls, Church and Nathan were navigating deeper into the wilds of the Floccesy Ranch to try to find Zinzolin. Lacey had started to direct them toward his location, claiming he was in a hollowed-out, grand tree down a slight path she had started to carve out among the vegetation, but she had passed out against Church's Arcanine before she had finished showing them the way. After ensuring she was alright, just likely exhausted, they had carried on and after an hour or so of searching, came across a towering, dying tree with a hollowed-out center, and a purple jacket bunched up near its entrance. It was covered in mud and a terrible smell emanated from the tree, something musty Church couldn't place, almost tangy. Indeed, Arcanine even growled and refused to get too close. That deeply concerned Church; he regularly had to call his Arcanine off from chasing terrible smells in Virbank. He didn't like the implications of whatever horrors awaited them in that treehollow if even Arcanine was uninterested.

Church grimaced and pinched his nose as he shared an uncertain look with Nathan. "Guess we found him," Church tried to joke, though it came off more as a grim remark.

Unlike Church, however, Nathan didn't look the least bit torn up about the situation at hand. In fact, he had seemed almost aggravated with Church's gentleness with Lacey, and had gone silent as could be, refusing to speak to her as he rode astride Cobalion deeper into the forest. The Steel-type was still present, though it, too, refused to come any closer, just like Church's Arcanine.

As Nathan regarded Zinzolin's treehollow, he clenched his jaw. "Guess we did," he said flatly, marching closer to the tree. "Zinzolin! You're under arrest! Sit up with your hands up, either way, you're coming out of there!"

There was no reply. Church picked his way closer and almost gagged on the sheer scent of urine, sweat, and… blood? "Arceus," he spat, "what—"

"Shit!" Nathan hissed, backpedaling from the treehollow abruptly, so fast that he tripped on a root and was caught by his Zoroark, Zeshi. Losing his nerve, Church jumped away as well, suddenly not wanting to go any closer. Zeshi nosed Nathan back to his feet and he thanked her offhandedly, covering his face and shaking his head. "He's dead," Nathan mumbled through his hands. "Something got to him, or… I don't know, but he's very dead." Gagging and spluttering, Nathan hobbled back toward Cobalion. "That was awful, oh my Arceus!"

Both of them jerked their heads back toward Church's Arcanine when they heard Lacey squeak. "Zinzolin? What—what happened?!" She was struggling to remain balanced as she muscled her way to an upright position despite her bound arms, and her face was so, so pale, as she looked over the treehollow. As if hit with the scent in the air, she abruptly wrinkled her nose and gagged. Turning a harsh glare on Church, one of sheer betrayal, she snarled, "You lied! You said—you—I can't believe I would be so stupid!" Before Church could say anything else, she howled, "Zinzolin!"

"I didn't do this!" Church yelped at the accusation, gawking after the treehollow. "I—"

"Church, enough," Nathan cut him off, then narrowed his eyes after Lacey. "Lacey, that is enough, we did nothing to Zinzolin. We found him like this, looks like a wild pokémon got to him. Calm down, or we'll use whatever force necessary to bring you in. I'd really rather not to have to hurt you," he growled as he stalked nearer to her, "but I'm not letting you go. So, knock this off. Got it?"

For his efforts, Nathan received a spit to the face. He recoiled in shock, then slowly drew a hand over his face. Blinking, he asked in a quiet incredulousness that honestly frightened Church, "I'm sorry, but did the Neo Plasma grunt and apologist just spit in my fucking face?"

"More where that came from, pretty boy," Lacey hissed in an all-too snakelike tone. "I'm not scared of you. Murderer."

Liar, Church thought, then jumped to put himself between Nathan and her. He staggered when Nathan shoved him to try to get at her, but once he regained his footing, he snatched Nathan by his left forearm. "Nathan! Stop it!"

"I am not a murderer!" Nathan snarled. "I am not the same as you or any of your freaky friends, you bitch—!"

Church violently shook Nathan, and snapped, "Nathan!" That seemed to snap him out of his enraged trance, going limp in Church's hold for a split second as he regarded the Elite Four with a fleeting look of fright. Just as soon as he'd noticed it, though, it was gone, and Nathan wrenched his arm out of the other's hold. He took a deep, composing breath and brushed himself off.

"Sorry," he muttered, shooting Lacey another look. He shook his head. "Sorry. Shouldn't have snapped like that…"

Although he and Nathan didn't hang out as much as Church would have liked, they knew plenty about each other that few others did. Nathan, with his brusque but mostly playful disposition, could easily distract Church's wandering and self-destructive mind; Church's calmer and caring personality could reign Nathan in whenever his mind started playing tricks on him, enticing him to be crueler and sharper-tongued than usual. That meant Nathan knew of Church's one-sided love for Hil and how it still wasn't entirely over for him, even though he and Hil had started to work out their new relationship as just friends in recent times, and it meant that Church knew of the horrors Nathan had faced in his past… Which, he uncomfortably realized, wasn't that long ago at all. It had only been just shy of two years since Nathan's abuse had stopped. He had done a lot of growing over his journey through Unova and he was definitely not the same as the flighty, turbulent boy he met at Pokéstar Studios back then, but he wasn't perfect. He still had bad days, and Rosa had done a number on him as well at the tail end of his journey. Neo Plasma had been a horrific terrorist regime, there was no doubt about that, but Church knew that the source of Nathan's hatred for them stemmed mainly from an arrogant, bloodthirsty brunette—and that he hated any comparisons to such a girl, including someone calling him a murderer or any variation thereof.

No, Nathan and Church were not close, at least not in the way Church and Hil were as friends, but they were still there for each other. With that in mind, Church dipped his head at his friend. "It's alright, Nathan," he said gently, smiling. "You did your part, we got her, we know where Zinzolin is, and you've got her pokémon in custody. Just help me get out of this forest…" Church grimaced and looked around uncertainly. "Whatever did that"—Church pointed to Zinzolin's treehollow—"could still be hanging out, you know."

Nathan nodded at his words and said nothing, suddenly unable to look at Lacey as he mounted Cobalion. The pokémon knowingly chuffed at him and looked over its shoulders back at him, in a way that made Church think it was perhaps telling him that everything was okay. Nathan stiffly responded by rubbing the side of its neck, and Zeshi followed closely on Cobalion's heels as Nathan started to lead them away.

Sighing, Church turned back to his Arcanine and looked at Lacey pointedly. "Can I get on my Arcanine or are you going to fight me every step of the way back?"

"What's the point?" she asked cruelly once Nathan was out of earshot, though her voice was raw with emotion. With a disappointed, heartbroken look that gave Church a painful pang of sympathy for her, she brokenly said, "There's no reason for me to care anymore. Zinzolin's dead. I have nobody. I'd be better off dead than just scraping by out here."

Frustrated, Church pinched the bridge of his nose. He highly doubted Zinzolin was that amazing of a person, considering part of the reason he was wanted was for supporting the attack on Opelucid, and her unwillingness to believe him when he said they hadn't done anything was aggravating in a way he didn't understand. Why did she want so adamantly to believe he, Nathan, and the rest of the League were these evil, awful people, while she held people like Zinzolin in such high regard? What had Ghetsis done to her? "I told you, nobody's—"

"Shut up!" Lacey blasted at him, curling her lips to bare her teeth at him animalistically, to the point he could see her gums. Which were white. "Just shut up! You're a liar and I hate you! I hate all of you!" With that, she half-collapsed against Arcanine's back again. "Just take me back and shut up."

Privately, he decided he was very interested to learn more about her, but that he would get nothing else from her that day. Especially considering how poor her condition was, he just wanted to get her taken care of and the legality of the situation figured out, then he would decide how he could understand her. Maybe, if she was just woefully misguided as she seemed, he could help her. Not everyone from Team Plasma's side of Unova had to be a tragedy. After all, N was once their king, and now, he was a Consul of Unova.

Maybe there are other diamonds in the rough.


Benga felt small indeed as he stood behind Alder, out on one of Floccesy's paths. Nathan and Church were there, surrounded by a small squadron of police, most of which came from Virbank. The police were dealing with the girl they had captured—Lacey, Benga thought he caught them call her—while Nathan offered a report and information regarding Zinzolin… who had apparently died to a wild pokémon in the forest. When Nathan was finished talking with them, he turned a searing look over Alder and Benga both, and approached them with his hands on his hips.

"Alder."

"Champion Nathan," Alder greeted him tensely, "thank you so much for—"

"Why was your grandson out there trying to fight that girl?" Nathan brusquely cut him off, brown gaze hardened on Benga. "He could have been killed. Worse, he could have gotten the two friends he was with killed."

Shrinking under those words, Benga felt as if they might suffocate him. His hair flopped in his face and he made no effort to brush it away this time. I didn't mean for any of that to happen, though! he thought desperately. We couldn't have died! Of course, he knew that was a lie. Zinzolin and Lacey had clearly been living in that forest for an untold amount of time, and he had just been killed that very same day. But it was just too horrible to think that he could have potentially led himself, Gaius, and Janna all to their untimely ends.

"Right… Thank you, Champion Nathan, for your assistance," was all Alder had to say to that. "I'll keep a closer eye on him from now on, of course."

"I didn't mean to get anyone hurt!" Benga finally burst, tugging at some of his hair. "I just—I just wanted Grampa to see that I could take on the Black Tower! Y'know, out in Black City…"

"Benga!" Alder hissed. "Now is not the time! You'll be lucky if—"

"He'll be lucky if what?" Nathan cut him off sharply, squaring his shoulders some. His Zoroark appeared at his side then in a flash of violet and growled at Alder. "Don't threaten that kid in front of me, Alder."

With a mortified expression, Alder blinked. It slowly soured until it seemed he wanted to say something more along the lines of, "Pretty sure you're still a kid, too, Nathan, but alright." Even so, all Alder really said was, "Er… Right. I just meant that if he's so reckless as to go after an ex-Neo Plasma member, then I don't think he should be going to the Black Tower. The battles there are notoriously brutal, and accidents are common…"

"It's still a controlled environment," Nathan pointed out bluntly. Jabbing a thumb behind him and toward where the police were still gathered, he added, "Makes me wonder if he'd have gone after Crazy and her friend in the forest if he had that to do instead."

"So, you'd like me to send him there."

"Yeah, I do."

"He is my grandson, Champion Nathan," Alder softly warned, "you do remember that, yes? And you remember that I am Alder?"

"Former Champion of Unova who wandered for years and let the League rot from the inside out," Nathan testily replied, eyes glittering. "I do know, actually." The end of his lips curled slightly. "You do not own that boy, Alder. How old is he?"

"…Seventeen."

"So, why is he still acting like he's afraid of your shadow?" Nathan pressed, starting to circle him. "Do you hold that old title above his head, Alder, because he's the only one that still respects it? Because you know nobody else does and you need to feel that sense of power from somewhere? About how right am I?"

As if he had lost the patience to speak to Nathan with any proper authority, thanks to the way Nathan was railing on him, Alder bristled. "How dare you! Listen here, I—"

"Th-that's enough, please," Benga squeakily spoke up, gingerly tiptoeing over to Alder and Nathan with his hands up. Swallowing hard, he tilted his head at Nathan pleadingly. "Please… Leave him alone." I never thought about it that way, though… Is… is that true? I mean, I know Grampa didn't mean to hurt Unova… He was just upset after losing his Volcarona… "We'll work this out, um… Th-thank you, Champion Nathan…"

Regarding Benga expressionlessly, Nathan stared for a moment. At last, he dipped his head respectfully and took a step back. Yet, from there he growled, "Alder, please do not treat that boy as if you own him. It's not his fault you made your mistakes." With that, he turned on a heel and headed back for the police, sharing a few words with Church.

An awkward silence stretched between Benga and his grandfather until Alder groaned. "As much as I hate to say it," Alder grumbled, "Nathan's right. Maybe it is time you get out there so you quit causin' trouble."

"Hey!" Benga indignantly exclaimed. "I do not cause that much trouble—"

"Last week I had to send someone to save you from the sea because you tried jumping onto the back of a wild Gyarados," Alder dryly interrupted, cutting his eyes at his grandson. Benga winced and laughed uneasily.

"W-well… I thought I was gonna catch it…"

"Maybe havin' something to do like the Tower ain't such a bad idea," Alder admitted. "I know I don't have anything left I can teach you, anyway…"

Well, now I feel bad about it! Maybe Alder messed up… maybe he messed way worse than I understand, but… He doesn't have anyone left but me, and he sounds like he thinks I'm just never gonna come back… Frowning, Benga bounced in front of Alder and pumped a fist in the air. "Well, I'll win! And even if it takes a while, I'll still do it! And I'll come back and visit! You'll see! I have a Volcarona too, remember? I can Fly back whenever!"

Taken aback by that comment, Alder jolted. "You will?"

"Well, yeah! What did you think I was gonna do?"

"Er…" Alder chuckled halfheartedly. "Well, you spoke of leaving so much I just… thought as soon as I took away the reins, I'd never see ya again, so to speak."

So, your solution was to just never let me leave? Benga wanted to laugh and ask. Instead, he simply said, "'Course I'll come back. I mean, Gaius and Janna are still here, too… I grew up here." He shrugged. "I'll always have somethin' to come back to." He paused and suddenly yelped, tugging at his hair again. "Gaius and Janna! I need to go check and make sure they're okay! I'll be right back!"

Benga kicked up dust and grass as he bolted away, and Alder just chuckled softly after him. "Still unlearning all those mistakes I've been makin' over the years," he sadly commented to himself. "Need to learn to let go…"


Church realized quickly after Lacey was properly taken into custody that he might have been in for a war rather than a battle. She was accused of being involved in a litany of smaller transgressions committed by Neo Plasma as well as part of many pokémon robberies, and although only a handful ended up getting properly proven, it was enough to revoke her rights to own pokémon altogether and sentence her to quite a few years in prison. Throughout the process of her getting accused and properly charged, however, Church had adamantly tried to keep up with his promise of learning everything he could about her and helping her however he could. He was still convinced there was so much more to her than he or anyone else could have known, and he was determined. He didn't know or understand why, but his desire to help her was a welcome one. His passion for acting had started to wane, and although he and Hil were on better terms, it was still painful to come to terms with the fact he and Hil could never be together; so, maybe having nothing better to do had thrust him into the desire to help Lacey. Regardless of why, he did, and though the first few times he visited her in prison she refused to speak to him, the fourth time, she had cautiously decided to accept his visit and they spoke through the stereotypical glass booth with a phone on either side of it.

After navigating a few cagy replies from her, she seemed more willing to speak, in that she admitted, "I know it wasn't you who hurt Zinzolin… I was told that some Mandibuzz came after him because of the… smell…" After a momentary pause, she had muttered, "I believe that, because I kept having to help him fight them off… I left him with some pokémon in Poké Balls, but… he might have passed out…"

Honestly, Church hadn't even known that detail, so upon hearing it, he felt physically ill and had to take a moment to look away. "Oh, my Arceus, Mandibuzz went after him while he was alive?" he practically squeaked. "That's…"

"Awful, yeah," Lacey mumbled, fidgeting with the phone cord. "He was hurt bad after the Frigate. Big, infected wound on his back. He wouldn't go to any doctors and told me that they'd kill him…" She gave a shuddery sigh. "I went to a doctor shortly after you took me in… they didn't seem happy to see me, but nobody… nobody hurt me… and I felt better after a while. So… you were right about that."

He raised a brow at her. "I feel like there's a 'but' coming after that."

"But," she glowered at him, "that doesn't mean you're right about everything else. Maybe Ghetsis did lie about a lot. He can't have lied about everything. Why would have done so much over nothing?"

"That's a can of Venipede a lot of people have tried to figure out," Church laughed hoarsely, shaking his head. "Don't know if that's a path you wanna dedicate yourself to…"

"I've got twelve years to kill back here," Lacey snorted at him. "I've got nothing but time. Now, stop calling me all the time to visit here, I have better things to do than try to get to know you or any other League Lillipup."

"League Lillipup?" Church asked in amusement, ignoring the rest of her statements so far. "Never heard that phrase before."

"It means you're a lapdog for the one on top," she hissed, "your buddy, Nate, who was with you when you caught me."

"Nathan," Church corrected her gently, "and I am not his—"

"You don't even like me saying the shorthand version of his name," Lacey spat, "and you work under him. I know how power distribution works. Nathan sits on his throne and you all do his bidding. Hil and N are figureheads, the same as always. That traitor was never good for anything else."

Whew, she's intense. Also, wow, she has no idea how anything actually works. Kinda wish Ghetsis was still around so I could kick him in the nose! Church just blinked. Baby steps, baby steps, Church… Can't go unraveling all of that in a day. Also, twelve years?! She doesn't know how society works as it is! She'll just learn how to be a prison inmate for the rest of her life… and something tells me she already knows how to be an inmate. Frowning, Church shrugged. "Alright, I'll go for now. But I'll be coming back."

"Don't bother," Lacey sneered at him. "I won't answer."

"Oh, is that a challenge?" Church beamed. "I can be quite annoying when I wanna be."

"I'm sure you can, Elite Four dog," she hissed. "Now, go away, I'm done talking." With that, she hung up and crossed her arms. A strand of stray, black hair landed in her face and she puffed some air to blow it away.

Grinning back at her, Church jumped up and waved. Oh, won't she be fun?

Though the next few attempts to visit her ended in her refusal, she yet again obliged him another time. And another, and another, and another. Every meeting started the same way, with her preaching her hatred for the League Staff, followed by her slowly revealing a nugget of information about her prior life. Church learned all sorts of things about her over the course of her first year incarcerated; like how she had lived the last eight years of her life prior to her capture with Team Plasma… and she was only two years older than Church, meaning that she had been with them since she was twelve. He never could pry it out of her just why she had joined them in the first place, but he discovered that she originally came from Nacrene City, likely having joined Team Plasma just a few months before Church had moved into the town. She had been given her first pokémon—her Mightyena, a Poochyena at the time—by Team Plasma, and had amassed the rest of her team through thieving as well. She had never bought into Team Plasma's mantra that pokémon deserved to be 'free;' instead, it seemed Ghetsis had convinced her that only Team Plasma could have pokémon, because only they understood the true nature of humanity. Although they were still human and fully capable of humanity's 'evil,' because they recognized it, they could alter their own behavior, whereas the rest of Unova failed to recognize this fact of life at all.

That cultish core belief, Church realized, was at the root of all of Lacey's misgivings. She truly believed humans were nasty and evil by nature, and that people who convinced themselves they were otherwise were the worst kind, because they were capable of unfathomable horrors without ever being aware or taking responsibility. That was why whenever Church tried to show he was harmless, she would scrutinize him more and tell him off harsher than before; shows of trust were seem as attempts at manipulation. Yet, trying to tell her she was wrong didn't exactly work either, did it? In the end, he concluded it would simply take time to show her that she was wrong, that if he had wanted to harm her, he would have done so a long time ago.

At first, he started volunteering at the prison, dropping a project he had recently been cast in at Pokéstar Studios (not that it sat well with the Studio, especially when they learned he was volunteering at a prison that primarily took in ex-Team Plasma), and that seemed to genuinely shock Lacey. He worked in various parts of the prison, wherever he was needed that day. Sometimes, that meant acting as janitorial staff or helping with food preparation, but most of the time, it was actually assisting with the educational programs. The teachers that worked at the prison tended to be elderly and could have difficulty running the classes on their own, he'd often act as their assistant. Pokémon were strictly forbidden on the premises except for on-duty officers, though, and inside of those steel walls felt like an entirely different world… It wasn't bad, but it was predictable, scheduled, and prisoners had a strict hierarchy amongst themselves that even the officers and guards didn't understand. Uncomfortably, Church thought that this environment was likely little better than the very Frigate Lacey, or any number of the other ex-Neo Plasma members there, had come from—and he was sure Lacey was not the only one that had been there through traumatic means. Regardless, volunteering gave him a way to occasionally interact with Lacey in a neutral way, to passively show her his interest in merely helping, though he often did encourage her to pick up some jobs or classes around the prison.

"With good behavior," he had explained, "you can get rewarded by having your sentence lowered. It's basically showing them that you're actually learning while you're in here, so they see it as progress, and that you don't need to be here for as long as they thought."

"It's kowtowing to them," Lacey had bitingly retorted. "…Though, I guess the sooner I can get out from under your claws, the sooner I don't have to do that anymore at all, huh…"

He had sighed and rubbed his temple, laughing weakly into the phone. "Well, that's one way to look at it, too, yeah."

It was frustratingly slow progress, but there was occasional progress to stave off the fears that she may never come completely around. Like the time he had been helping her in an easygoing art class, where she had successfully recreated something on the canvas and excitedly waved him over to show him. Of course, that had been followed immediately by her cagily threatening to paint his face next, but even just that little flicker of genuine joy from her had been so rewarding. Or perhaps the time she had burst in excitement to tell him of a book she had read, or over a TV show she had briefly gotten to watch in her share of the rec room (supervised, of course). Over time, those glimpses into who she really was became more apparent, slowly scrubbing away the terror and hatred Ghetsis had instilled in her.

Yet, news of Church's involvement at the facility was quick to reach public ears. At first, it wasn't that big of a deal, most were just rather shocked he would have wanted to, considering he had been there at the Frigate the day it was destroyed; however, the director at Pokéstar Studios that Church had canceled on had clearly not forgiven him, and as Church had made the mistake of informing him why he was canceling—to help a girl he thought Team Plasma had hurt much in the same way as N—said director knew all the right strings to pull to put Church down in public opinion. He had callously informed a magazine that Church had bucked his project at Pokéstar Studios and perhaps even his role as an Elite Four member to court an ex-Neo Plasma member, one that was imprisoned no less, and while the magazine he had initially reported it to was not that popular, the news still spread like wildfire. The scandal of Churchill Pines falling in love with a terrorist soon brought some scrutiny on the League itself, and Church was briefly asked to stop at the corrections facility, even.

One day, Church had returned to the Pokémon League and exhaustedly called Nathan on the Xtransceiver as he retreated to his quarters. "I just don't know what to do about this," Church defeatedly explained once Nathan picked up and they briefly exchanged greetings. "They're smearing me. I can't say anything against it, for obvious reasons, and who on Earth is going to stand up for me? The League's getting shit, too, and I know N's going to start getting crap again for having once been the King of Team Plasma, and—"

"Hey, hey, wait a sec," Nathan waved a hand at him, then smirked. "Think you should turn on the TV. Channel sixteen."

"I have HD, what channel is that in modern speak?" Church chuckled halfheartedly back at him.

"West Unova News Network, you wise ass," Nathan laughed back at him. "Seriously, go on, turn it on, check it."

Rolling his eyes but snatching up the remote anyway to the TV, Church flopped down on the couch of his quarters and turned the TV on. Holding down the microphone button on the remote, he dramatically sighed, "West Unova News Network."

With that, the TV switched to an HD channel of the news, and he was shocked to find an image of N and Hil standing on some sort of stage in front of a microphone. Put more accurately, N was behind Hil as Hil adjusted the microphone and tapped his fingers impatiently, awaiting his cue to speak. They appeared to be at some studio in Castelia… It didn't appear to be an outdoor spectacle, at the very least. As soon as he was given the okay, however, Hil eagerly picked the microphone from the podium. Text at the bottom of the screen read 'Consuls Speak Regarding Churchill Pines Scandal,' scrolling past painfully slow.

"The Unovan Pokémon League has been made aware of allegations against Elite Four Churchill Pines over"—Hil paused to take an annoyed breath (which was caught by the microphone)—"'courting' an ex-Neo Plasma member, Lacey. First of all, on behalf of the entire Unovan Pokémon League, I would like to address calls for Churchill's resignation or firing: it's not happening. Having romantic feelings for someone of the same age is not an illegal act. However, that's not even to say that these allegations are true." Hil paced the length of the stage and progressively sounded more and more irritated. "I would like to ask that all of those reporting on this issue to please consider the source. The original published account was from a tabloid magazine, sourced from a disgruntled director from Pokéstar Studios. Churchill asked to be removed from a project he had yet to sign a commitment to so that he could volunteer at the Plasma Corrections Facility as well as remain an Elite Four member. Funny, then, how that director turned around to this tabloid magazine in a bid to smear Churchill's name, isn't it?"

He stopped again to take a shaky breath and Church uneasily grinned at the screen. From the Xtransceiver in his palm, Nathan was cackling like a fool. "Someone is ma-a-ad," he practically sang. "Yeah, so, Hil's been pissed about that for a while now but only got back recently to say anything about it. N's there for moral support, I don't think he has any lines in this speech, unless Hil decides to have him say some instead of him. I had to edit it to make sure Hil wasn't about to tell the rest of Unova to fuck off. Me! I'm the one that had to edit it to make it nicer!" he howled in laughter. "And trust me, I had to knock off some lines in there."

"Regardless," Hil picked up, "even if these rumors are true, so what? N is an ex-Team Plasma member. He has proven again and again the propensity for these people to change, and yet, there are so many of you sinking your teeth into this story and treating Lacey as if she is incapable of change. In fact, most accounts simply refer to her as a terrorist, and fail to even say that she was no more a terrorist than any number of the grunts that the Plasma Corrections Facility has rehabilitated. Several of which you may know as the Silver Knights in Driftveil, who work tirelessly to reunite stolen and abused pokémon with their rightful owners, even to this day, and their work has expanded to include all lost and injured pokémon, not just those leftover from their days in Team Plasma." He tapped a foot angrily against the stage. "You cannot Cheri-pick who is okay and who is not on the basis of their previous relation to Neo Plasma. If you hate Lacey on the basis that she was once part of Team Plasma, then you hate all who were once part of Team Plasma. If you don't, then you are a hypocrite, and in the case of Lacey… Honestly, the fact so many of you want to hate her, given the fact all that is public knowledge on her is that she is female and was part of Team Plasma, makes me believe many of you are closest misogynists or at the very least, need to take a very long look in the mirror."

Church felt almost embarrassed. "I'm kinda glad not that many people know about me and Hil's past," Church chuckled uneasily, "or else people might be realizing how personal this is…"

"Oh, I have a feeling people are gonna know anyway, just based on how pissed off he sounds," Nathan snorted. "But so, what? Hil and N are the Consuls, not them."

Before either of them could keep talking, Hil was speaking again. "Quite simply, you all are stroking a bitter director's ego and demonizing someone who stepped back from a job they enjoyed to try and help people that were chewed up and spat out by Team Plasma. Keep in mind that by volunteering at this facility, Churchill is helping every single person within it, not just Lacey. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Team Plasma had many faces. Some of them, like Ghetsis, were terrible and deserve the utmost of punishment, but most were as manipulated or abused as N. There were too many people involved in Team Plasma for us to simply blanket them all as terrible people, lock them up, and throw away the key. They will serve their time, they will answer for their crimes, and if they can, they will be rehabilitated and reintroduced into society as better human beings for it. The Silver Knights and Consul N are testaments to that. Although I do think it is wildly inappropriate for these magazines and stories to be talking about a potential romantic relationship between Elite Four Churchill and this Lacey, because that is his personal life and not any of yours, even if it ends up happening, that is not yours to judge. Again, if she answers for her crimes and is rehabilitated and becomes a productive member of society, are you trying to say she is not deserving or capable of a romantic relationship because of her past? Again, hypocritical, and potentially misogynistic." Hil growled and shook his head. "I am appalled that Pokéstar Studios has allowed this to go this far. I highly recommend the immediate firing or resignation of this director for the undue suffering and slandering of Churchill Pines' name. Unlike you, I will not speak their name publicly, as they and Pokéstar Studios knows who they are, and can deal with it privately." Hil looked up then, and in that moment, Church realized that Hil wasn't reading off a card or anything of the sort.

"Did he memorize this?" Church gaped.

"Yup," Nathan was still giggling, "he absolutely did."

"Unless someone has proof that Elite Four Churchill Pines has assisted in active terrorist acts against the Unova Region," Hil growled at the camera, "I would like to ask that everyone put this story to rest and recognize that if Unova is to move forward, we cannot afford to keep tearing ourselves apart at the core. We must work together to overcome this. Team Plasma thrived on dividing Unovans against one another through suspicion, fear, and despair. Team Plasma is gone and dead. Let it stay that way. Work together to move forward. Thank you for your time today."

With that, the screen started to fade back to the news anchor, but Church was too stunned to care for what she had to say after that. Nathan spoke up for him. "So, about what you're gonna do about it," he snickered, "my guess is you're going to just keep doing what you were doing, and if the Plasma Corrections Facility gives you any shit for it, you get to call me! 'Cause they're not supposed to be able to deny you for stupid shit like that. That facility always needs volunteers, so they're shooting themselves in the foot, too, by telling you that you can't. And like, I don't care if you have feelings for the girl or not, man, but even if you did, I feel like you have the self-control not to go making moves on her while you're working." With a wicked grin and a mocking tone, Nathan almost sang, "You're the saintly Churchill Pines, you're just such a good guy!"

Still reeling in a bit of warmth at Hil's vehement defense of him, Church laughed. "I can't tell if you're complimenting or mocking me, Nathan."

"A bit of both, really."

"Hah, yeah, that sounds about right," Church chuckled, rubbing the back of his head with a free hand. "Well… uh. Damn. That… that took a lot off my shoulders. I kinda don't know what to do now. My plan was to basically just spend the rest of today stressing out about it."

Nathan raised a brow at him. "Is that always your plan whenever something goes wrong?"

"Look, you," Church pouted, "…maybe?"

"I think Hilda's planning to challenge the League again today. She's out there harassing some trainers on Victory Road. Wanna come watch me mop the floor with her? Then, tomorrow you go back out there to the Plasma Corrections Facility and tell them to shove it?"

"I'll come watch you, but about the jail… I'm pretty sure Hil already told them to shove it," Church mused. "Say, when are you gonna make a move on that Hilda girl, anyway?"

Nathan all but yelped, "What—what are you talking about?"

"She challenges you all the time. She gave you her number at one point. She likes you. You playing hard to get or something?" Church teased, cocking his head at the Xtransceiver.

"Look, you can't let her call all the shots like that," Nathan complained, "'cause then she'd think I was desperate and that she's always wearing the pants, and… it's just not gonna be like that for me. I think I'll show her why I'm Champion a few more times and then maybe invite her to a party next time Hugh and I have a day off."

Personally, Church thought Nathan's rationale when it came to women was mind-boggling, but he also couldn't entirely blame him given his history; a mother who inadvertently condoned abuse by ignoring it and Rosa, who had toyed with Nathan's feelings before being revealed as a member of Neo Plasma… and not just any member, but a high-ranking one in all likelihood, associated with the chilling Dr. Colress. So, to Nathan's needlessly alpha mentality towards Hilda, Church just rolled his eyes. "Sounds like a plan… I'll get ready and head to your chambers here soon."

"See ya, Church!"


Eventually, Lacey had been released for good behavior, a full six years earlier than her sentence had called for (Church couldn't help but pride himself a bit on helping with that). She was still suspicious of the world, but Church had managed to convince her to stay with him following her release (not to mention, it wasn't like she exactly had family or friends to return to after the traumatic, all-encompassing ordeal of being one of Team Plasma's grunts). After so, so much pleading, she agreed, on a myriad of strict stipulations that Church honestly had to write down to keep up with.

Adjusting to living with Lacey was… a challenge. She was moody; some days were fantastic and went hardly without confrontation, while other days she would panic over being unable to find something as simple as a tube of toothpaste, resulting in a massive breakdown. That had certainly been an odd day… Church had been in the kitchen trying to pour himself a drink of water, and she had yelped from the bathroom, making him drop his glass in his fervor to get to her. It shattered on the floor, but he didn't care, and once he rounded the hall and wrenched open the bathroom door, he saw that she had retreated from the bathroom counter and sat on the lid of the toilet. She was shivering and hugging herself tightly, and when he opened the door unexpectedly, she jerked her head up at him and squeaked in shock, "Get out!"

"Lacey, what's wrong?" Church tenderly asked, heart pounding in his chest.

"I—I can't find it," she whimpered, bringing her knees up to her chest and burying her face against them. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just, I can't find it and…"

Such outbursts always reminded him of when he had first met her. She sounded so fearful and her harsh tone was undermined by the warbling of fright in her vocals. Her voice cracked like a middle schooler's from the turbulent swirl of emotions she desperately was trying to keep a lid on. It made his heart ache and he sighed sadly, tilting his head. "Lacey… you can't find what? I didn't even ask you to look for anything…"

"The… toothpaste…" She paused for a moment, a violet tremor passing through her body before she slowly started to unfurl from her fetal position. "You didn't…?"

"No…" He gingerly picked his way forward and then knelt in front of her, putting his hands up in a show of harmlessness. "I promise. It's okay. Look…" He smiled at her nervously. "I'm sure the toothpaste is just, misplaced somewhere, I'll help you look, alright?"

After a while, he thought perhaps bringing her to meet Hil and N would have been a good idea, considering she still fearfully referred to them as 'League Lillipup' (Church got a mixed bag of amusement and pity in his chest whenever she said that). He hoped meeting them would help put her mind at ease and show her that the core argument behind Ghetsis' methodology was flawed. N was not a heartless traitor. In fact, he was quite the opposite!

Of course, convincing her had been the hard part. She fought him tooth and nail every step of the way, and although he didn't force her, he was more than happy to nag her about it until the end of time. Eventually, she relented, under the stipulation she was allowed to leave whenever she wanted to. He had agreed and Church arranged with Hil and N a date to meet them at the center of the Pokémon League, at the statue that stood tall between all the Elite Four chambers. Nathan, Marshal, and Shauntal were there, too, as part of Church's convincing had been that others would be there, so it wasn't like she and Church would be alone with two Consuls of Unova.

It had taken all the strength in the world not to start giggling right away as she hatefully glared at the two of them at the base of that statue, and to her smoldering stare, Hil merely waved and cocked his head curiously at her. "Hey, Lacey," he lazily called, "I'm Hil."

A little more cautiously (and clasping Hil's left hand), N gingerly spoke up, "And I'm sure you know me, but… I'm N."

Their introductions weren't what was so funny, though. Lacey's immediate halt and the way she blinked at them, Church thought he could practically see the cogs turning in her head, telling him this wasn't how she had imagined her meeting with the two of them going. "Hi…" she uncertainly muttered at last, abruptly stepping so close to Church that he narrowly avoided her standing on his feet. She pressed a shoulder to him and growled at N, "So… what now? Church has been demanding I meet you two. Now what?"

"Uh, I dunno!" Hil shrugged, leaning a head over against N's right arm. "You could watch us do Consul stuff, but I imagine that'd get boring pretty fast. Then again, I dunno, watching N growl at Skyla's always pretty fun. If I didn't have to act like a leader or something, I mean…"

N's face flushed a pale shade of pink. "She can be so… combative," he huffed, "and so, so rude…"

"Yeah, that sounds like Skyla," Marshal guffawed as he chimed in from the sidelines.

"So, of course, the proper response is to snarl at her," Hil teased N, grinning broader and broader. "It's okay, I won't tell her what the snarls mean."

N blushed harder. "Th-they don't mean anything that bad," he weakly defended himself, "I just… get frustrated… with her… Anyway…" N took a shaky breath and concentrated on Lacey, awkwardly shuffling his feet. "We have heard a lot about you from Church, and… I just wanted to say that I am glad you have started to heal. I know that it isn't… easy."

She opened her mouth as if she intended to yell at him, but whatever she had wanted to say died in her throat, and her shoulders sagged. With one last, cautious look to Church, she nervously stepped away from him and whispered, "It… it hasn't been, no…"

That had been a major turning point in her recovery. She and N spent some time that day chattering to each other before Lacey grew too mentally weary to continue the conversation, drained from the shocking revelation that Hil and N were people, the same as she was, and not the monstrous, dark deities Ghetsis had made them out to be.

And continue to recover she did. At every breakthrough such as that, Church would get that deep-seated, rewarded feeling, that made his heart swell with happiness for her. Like one such day where he had curled up to watch a rerun of an old TV show he loved, and she had decided to join him. Up until that point, she had decidedly avoided spending idle time with him (which she had plenty of, considering Church had offered to cover her financially until she was mentally stable enough to attempt to find a job; the most taxing thing she had to do in a day was visit a psychiatrist or a therapist), but that day, something seemed to spur her on. She had cautiously tiptoed into the living area and slunk onto the couch, as if moving slow enough might have kept Church from noticing her. It had taken everything in his power not to chuckle at her and simply keep his eyes trained on the TV. He was afraid of scaring her away like a skittish Purrloin. His patience seemed to pay off, for she soon relaxed on her end of the couch and was invested in the show.

That was when Arcanine noticed her, however. Leaping from his bed on the floor, he darted over to her and clumsily threw his paws in her lap, panting wildly. She yelped at first and recoiled, but then took a deep breath and anxiously stroked the messy mop of creamy fur on the pokémon's head. Her uncertain expression shifted to one of glee as she soon brought both hands to scratch at the pokémon's neck lovingly.

"You like Arcanine, huh?" Church dared to ask after a moment of smiling and watching her like that.

Jolting, as if she had forgotten he was even there, Lacey swallowed hard and glanced at him sideways. "Yeah," she mumbled at last. "Reminds me of Mightyena…"

Church winced. Her Mightyena, along with all of her other pokémon, had been confiscated long ago and given to the Silver Knights in a bid to find their rightful, original owners. Even if the pokémon's original trainers had never been found, it was most likely that they had been adopted out in the time since then. Even so… Watching her play with Arcanine gave him an idea. With a smug grin to himself, he turned back to the TV. He could practically feel her eyes narrow at him.

"Why are you smiling like that?"

"Because you've got no idea what I'm thinking about."

With some vitriol, she growled, "And why's that something to smile about?"

Oh, he knew she didn't like surprises, but he thought she might have liked that one. Regardless, he laughed and turned an easygoing smile on her. "You'll like it, I promise. I want to get you something."

That earned him an unceremonious glare and with a huff, she shoved Arcanine off her and retreated to her bedroom. Normally, he would have felt bad about scaring her like that, and admittedly, he was a bit sad that she wouldn't watch the rest of that episode with him, but he couldn't wait to see her face when he carried out his plan.

After a few phone calls and a few weeks passed, Church arrived back at his chambers in the Pokémon League with her, after taking her to one of her therapy appointments, only to find a man in a green uniform waiting outside the League's main entrance. There was a black pokémon carrier at his feet. With a relived smile, he waved at Church. "Oh, Church! I was almost worried I'd missed you!"

"No, sorry, I was just running a little late," Church laughed.

"Who's he?" Lacey asked cagily, cutting her eyes at him suspiciously.

"That's Fred," Church snickered, "he's a friend. I promise."

"We'll see about that."

He couldn't help but rolling his eyes at her some as he greeted the pokémon breeder, who Church had paid to travel from the southwestern corner of Unova to deliver a most special pokémon. After a brief chat and the signing of some papers, Fred clapped his hands and leaned down to open the small carrier at his side. Once the gate popped open, no pokémon came out, but once he started to raise and shake the carrier slightly, there was a slight whimper and a Poochyena then scurried out, wobbily stepping away from its previous confinement. Church immediately leaned down and scooped the little one up. It was only eight weeks old and was clearly afraid of the strange, new place it found itself in.

"A Poochyena?" Lacey curiously asked, gawking at the pokémon in his arms.

"Yeah," Church beamed. Hesitating before he explained the next part, he rubbed the Poochyena's head reassuringly and turned back to the breeder. "Thank you again, man, for traveling all this way and delivering this one for me. I know just sending the Poké Ball would've been easier, but… Well, anyway. Thanks!"

Fred shrugged, a smirk tugging at his lips as he said, "Doesn't bother me none. See you!" Church could practically hear him tacking on at the end, 'Considering all you paid to have me come deliver it to you,' and he resisted chuckling in amusement. There had been a reason for all the hassle, however. As soon as Fred was out of earshot and he was sure nobody else was nearby, Church leaned toward Lacey and grinned. "Now, I know you're not allowed to own pokémon… but there's no reason I can't catch this one in a Poké Ball and you just hang out with her, is there? I'll own her, but she'll really be yours. I mean… you obviously can't go in any League matches or anything with her, but—"

Lacey snatched the Poochyena from his arms and squealed in delight, cutting him off. "She's so cute!" she announced triumphantly, hugging the fluffy Poochyena tightly, who whimpered after a moment and struggled to get out of her grasp, but when Lacey took no notice and kissed her on the forehead, she relaxed and her tiny tail started to flail in nervous excitement.

"Haha, I take it you like her, then?" Church teased.

"Thank you, Church!" Lacey called out, her voice muffled as she had her face pressed against the Poochyena's fur. "I love her!"

Good… I think a new start's just all you need. Satisfied with her reaction, Church gently reached a hand to touch her shoulder. "I'm so glad, Lacey," he softly told her, "but let's get back to my chambers. Then, you can enjoy her all you want and really get to know her. I'm sure she's a bit scared out here, she's been traveling a lot."

Indeed, learning to live with Lacey and learning about her took patience and baby steps, but Church was good at both of those. Even Victini came around to like her after a while, and after she received Poochyena—who she later nicknamed Faith—she seemed to come out of her shell faster and faster. Her therapist remarked on her progress and she grew to enjoy spending time with Church more and more. Her outbursts became less frequent and less explosive whenever they did occur. As for Church? Well…

After nearly seven years of working with Lacey, it dawned on him one morning that it had been a long, long time since he had felt sad over Hil, and that their friendship since he had met Lacey had been full of laughs and fun times, rather than the consistent push and pull of pain and pleasure it had been beforehand. It shocked him to realize that he and Hil worked so much better as simple friends and simultaneously, the realization that he cared deeply for Lacey snuck up on him like a riptide at a beach. He couldn't remember when he had first started feeling so strongly for her; just that he had always wanted to help her, and despite all of her demons—and she certainly had plenty, not every day with her was so pretty—he loved her deeply and wouldn't have traded it for anything. She gave him a purpose, kept him occupied, and there were rare moments where she made it clear she saw him as the safest person in the world…

Like one evening where she had curled up to him late in the evening to watch a movie in the dark with him, Faith curled in their laps. She rarely would have done that, but that evening, she hadn't only joined him, but had fallen asleep with his arm wrapped around her. Or, so he had thought. When he smiled at her and chuckled to himself about getting a blanket for her, she had mumbled, "Don't worry, don't need one…"

"You sure?" he asked her softly. "There's one on the back of the couch…"

"No… You're pretty warm," she yawned. Comforted at that, Church had settled back in to finish up the movie, then was taken by surprise as she quietly added, "Church… I think I love you. I know I've still got a lot to learn… But I just… I'm so glad you never gave up on me… Back in prison, at therapy, even in the League… I've met so many different people and none of them ever made me feel like a person like you do…"

He had absolutely melted at that and hadn't known what to say to it at all. Stuttering a bit, he almost mewled, "Aww, Lacey… I'm… I'm glad… I love you, too." Though I'm a lot less glad she's still so uncomfortable around others…

He and Lacey still had a long way to go and honestly, he wasn't sure if her recovery would ever quite be over, but he was so glad to help her as much as he could. He didn't mind the slowness of their relationship… In a way, that relieved him, and it was a far cry from the hormone-fueled chaos of when he and Hil had been together. For a relationship that had brought him to tears countless times in the past, he almost wanted to laugh at it, then. For all the hell he and Hil had dragged the other through, they had taught each other so much for it, and Church fully believed they were better people for it. Their rocky, occasionally heated romance had taught him that he preferred something slower and more certain—like he and Lacey were.

After so much time, he finally was someone's number one, and she was his.


I'MFINALLYDONEWITHTHISGODFORSAKENONESHOT