N stumbled along aimlessly. He did not know where he was going, nor where he was. He did not care.
The sky wept from above, spraying him with heavy rain that seeped into his clothes. His feet squished with each step. A dirt road paved the way before him, slick with mud; his only guide reference as he roamed in the blue darkness of the storm. But he did not care. Not that his clothes stuck to his skin, or that he had been walking for what felt like hours on end, his calves were tight knots, and not come across a person or city.
Luna was dead. Beautiful, radiant, exuberant Luna. He did not want to live in a world any longer that killed people of such innocence. And for what purpose?
Not for the first time, he stopped walking. It had been zoroarks that killed Luna. There was such thing as Pokemon with brutal, even violent natures, but it was impossible to believe that anything would drive one to commit such a crime. Unless told to do so by a human. N did not know everything about Luna's past, but he wondered who might have cause to hate her.
Before he could conclude an answer, he banished the thought from his mind and continued to wander. Thunder boomed, and lightning snaked through black clouds. What did it matter, anyway? The fact remained that Luna was dead, and N could not change that, even if he discovered the vile person who had her killed. He had already failed to protect the one person in the world who made him smile, genuinely smile, and laugh.
Maybe, for that, he did not deserve to keep living.
If he had not already spent every tear in his body after days of weeping, he would have broken down again and begun to sob into his hands; his heart was numb. Yet there was one thing he had gained, even if incredibly minuscule when compared to what he had lost.
In his hand, he clutched a Pokeball, water streaming down its red and white surface. Haxorus had asked N to be her trainer once Luna had died, while the rest of her Pokemon scattered to the wilds. Once, he would have felt incredible joy to learn of their freedom, but now, instead, he had continued to keep one of them in confinement.
Was it right for him to do so? He did not know. Bot haxorus had loved Luna, and there was no doubt that she had reciprocated the feeling, and so from time to time, N would clutch the Pokeball close to his chest. The last reminder of the girl he loved. Luna would want haxorus to be happy, and if what made the Pokemon happy was having N as a trainer, then so be it.
Lightning flashed again. This time, a robed, green-haired man stood a small distance in front of N, arms folded inside sleeves.
Ghetsis. His father. The image stuck in N's eyes as the white light faded, and Ghetsis became an indistinct shade. N felt as though he should have been surprised out find his father out in the open and not in a prison cell, let along standing in front of N. His eyes widened only slightly, however, before the void inside him swallowed the glimmer of bewilderment.
He hid the Pokeball behind his leg as he went to Ghetsis.
"My son," his father said. The weighted patter of rain drowned most of what N could hear of his voice, but N still recognized it. "You fled, forcing me to come and search for you."
"I believe you had been captured, father," N said, raising his voice to be heard.
Lightning flashed. A frown contorted Ghetsis' face. "You should have trusted that humans would not so easily capture me. Where did you go during this time, so far that I had to spend days searching for you?"
"I meant to have a trainer aid me in rescuing you. Luna. She had died, father."
"That girl was a trainer?"
N opened his mouth, then closed it again, pursing his lips. "Yes."
"Good riddance to her, then. You did not need her help, anyhow, seeing as my capture was your assumption and nothing more. Now, come along. Let us get out of this horrid rain. Things have changed."
Ghetsis turned on a heel and began to walk the dirt path, not waiting to see if N had a response.
He clenched the Pokeball until his knuckles were white. How could his father say that? N knew he meant it, too. Ghetsis was a smart man - the brightest N had ever met - but he was wrong. So entirely wrong that, for the first time in his life, N wanted to strangle his father.
He did not, of course, but followed behind him. N would have to become who he had been, again. He ran a thumb over the surface of haxorus' Pokeball.
He did not know if he could do that, or even if he wanted to.
The world that he and Ghetsis had begun to create, where Pokemon were free from the grasp of humans, it was not a world Luna would have liked. How many people had suffered because Team Plasma ripped their Pokemon away from them? How many cursed N's name as they wept into their pillows at night?
N watched his father's back, shadowed by the darkness, saturated with water. His father was counting on him, but surely another could take his place as the face of Team Plasma. Surely there was another. His life felt hollow and without meaning, and not even the goal of freeing Pokemon could bring the light back to him, for that goal that he worked so hard for may not have even been the right one.
If not for his father coming to find him, he thought he might have found a quiet place in the forest, surrounded by nature, and never moved from there again.