Having sealed her fate, just one day later Bianca was standing outside victory road. She was wearing the infamous gray unitard, formerly worn by common members of team plasma, with a black vest, black gloves and black boots, as well as a black beret on her head and a mouth mask covering the lower half of her face, all courtesy of Colress. It was like a key that allowed her to enter the depths of hell, masquerading as one of its cursed inhabitants. She walked into the pitch black darkness, her body was consumed by the gloom of the place, her back disappeared into the shadows as she moved deeper inside.

She searched for any trace of the team's suspected hideout around the passageways and bridges of the cave, sneaking her way away from trainers and wild pokemon, not because she couldn't beat them, but because no one would believe that a simple grunt could, and she had to keep up appearances. The famous cave, which preceded the very own pokemon league, connected with the abandoned ruins of N's old castle, which itself connected directly with the league, where Grimsley's tower was located.

Once Bianca reached the ruins of the castle she could sense how the atmosphere around her changed, there was an eerie vibe on the air, it was objectively colder than on the cave. The whole place smelled like old furniture. The barely visible gothic architecture evoked sorrow and decay. The walls seemed green and damp and the floor was slippery. It was a tragedy, how everything around her had been built with a poisonous intention and was destroyed right after it had been finished. It was a perfect physical representation of a doomed dream.

A big boulder appeared on Bianca's path as she walked through the decrepit rooms of the castle. Unfazed by it, she promptly called her stoutland out to move it out of the way, and the fluffy pokemon diligently completed the task without a problem. Perhaps Stoutland performed its task too well, because it carried the boulder all the way until it crashed into a wall, causing the shell of the former castle to tremble dangerously. The mild earthquake caused rocks and rubble to fall from the ceiling. One of the seemingly more well kept walls fell down whole. Bianca cowered with terror thinking that forsaken place would become her grave, and immediately called her stoutland back into its pokeball to protect it from the ensuing danger.

But the trembling stopped, and all of the other structures stayed firm in their place. Bianca took a deep breath and felt the dust caused by the shaking right on her nose. Then, after regaining her composure, she became suspicious of the fallen wall and went to check on it. Bianca discovered that the wall was only a fake front that someone had placed there to hide a set of stairs, which clashed jarringly with the rest of the ruins. They were clean, even luxurious, with black steps and red steps one after the other, and a very bright light at the end coming from the floor at the top.

With her eyes dead set on the light above her, a resolute Bianca went up the stairs, but she failed to realize just how bright the light was, and it momentarily blinded her at the same time she felt a rush of anxiety creep through her. Her sight came back, and to Bianca's surprise, as well as her disappointment, she discovered that the source of the light was a plain and short lamp pointed directly at the stairs. She rubbed her eyes, then identified two figures standing right next to the lamp. To the left, a brunette boy, wearing fancy black shoes, fancy black pants, a red vest, white buttoned shirt with a black bow tie, and black sunglasses. And to the left of him, a black door with a red doorknob.

"Hey! What are you doing here? Who told you you could just come here and start destroying the property?" The boy said, he was visibly irritated. And he became even more incensed when he took a good look at Bianca and what she was wearing, "Is this a joke, are you messing with me? Cause I hate when people mess with me, I really do,"

"excuse me, what do you mean?" Bianca replied, thoroughly confused,

"what do you mean what do I mean? You know exactly what I mean, because you are messing with me, this will not go well for you if you don't take this seriously,"

"I swear I'm not messing with you, my name is...uhh...Colette, and I heard that the old team is getting back together under new leadership, but I didn't know where or when," Bianca replied, trying to carry on with the plan with which she and Colress had come up,

"first of all, why did you hesitate when you said your name, you don't know your own name or what? Secondly, we are not getting team plasma back together this has nothing to do with them, and third, you suck and you are messing with me so why don't you turn back, change your clothes, burn the wicked rags that you have on, and then come back with a bit more respect and appreciation,"

"please I was just a bit confused, let me just tell you what happened to me, I, like a lot of people, chose to stay with team plasma once N left us, and then got the shorter end of the stick when Colress disbanded us. He sent me, along with the rest of the fleet 15, to work at as an assistant at the pokemart, but things didn't quite work out for me and I was let go."

There was a pregnant pause. Bianca slowly took off the mouth mask and felt her lips shake out of nervousness. The boy lowered his head and took his sunglasses off, and put them on his vest, revealing a pair of aggressive yet young looking brown eyes,

"wow, sorry," he finally said, "I'm Jonny by the way, my cousin Gino was on fleet 15, you know Gino?"

"Gino?" Bianca quivered, "Oh yeah...He's great,"

"whoa!"

Jonny audibly smacked his forehead, he got really excited, "that's right they've always said that about Gino, I suppose you did not keep in touch with him,"

"nope,"

"yeah it's quite sad what's happened to him,"

"oh no, what happened?"

"He became...a backpacker,"

"oh?"

"Yeah, such a shame, I myself was left aimless and quite frankly hopeless after team plasma was done, I couldn't land a job and my mom had rented out my room, and as you know you can't just throw your tenants out for no reason at all...luckily Grimsley appeared out of nowhere and gave me, and all of us, a chance, as well as a place to stay,"

"...do you think he could give me a chance?"

"Totally! Come right in I'll get you settled in myself." Jonny went for the door, but stopped just before the tip of his finger touched the handle, "just one thing, don't ever mess with me,"

"you got it," Bianca replied with relief, right after furtively clearing her throat. Her back was covered in cold sweat, she could feel how the sense of imminent danger left her and gave her a moment to breath safely.

Jonny opened the door with his right hand and waved his left hand toward it, telling Bianca to get in. Behind it was a big room, almost as big as a contest hall. The floor was covered in vividly red carpet on its entirety, and there were many tables dispersed over the wide area, each and every one of them covered with a green soft cloth on their surface, with six black chairs with golden finishes around every one of them. And above every table, a potent lamp showcased them and the people sitting on the chairs rather gracefully, all of this while classy piano music resounded pleasantly all around the room. Jonny took Bianca's hand and led her through the room, crossing through the tables filled with people wearing the same red and black outfit as Jonny; all of them. All eyes turned on Bianca, she felt the annoyance, anger, and sorrow that her outfit brought forth from everyone in the room which seemed endless. She was certainly in hell.

"Say," Bianca started talking once she remembered her objective, "I heard through some rumors that someone around here had captured a gym leader and was holding him captive, some people said it was Grimsley,"

"oh, that annoying guy, yeah, he escaped,"

"wait what?!" Bianca couldn't help but shout rather loud, from the sudden astonishment,

"he was a gym leader? Hm...anyway, indeed he escaped," Jonny continued nonchalantly, "I mean Grimsley let him go, but yeah, he was a jerk so I'm glad he's out of here."

They reached the edge of the room, where there was a table double the size of all the others. It only had one black and golden chair with its back facing the room. The light above it was not as strong as the ones above the other tables, giving that side of the room a greater sense of elegant duskiness and an even more noirish look. Jonny stopped and let go of Bianca's hand,

"but," she continued, "I heard that Grimsley had taken him as his prisoner,"

"ha!"

Bianca heard a laugh coming from the only chair at the larger table. She hadn't noticed there was someone sitting there already. It was difficult for her to notice who it was with all of the shadows that surrounded the table. It seemed as if whoever it was had called the darkness around him to hide his appearance, although Bianca had elaborated a guess as to the identity of the man of shadows, and it terrified her. She identified his body and stared at him hoping to get his attention, because her capacity for speech had been spontaneously disabled, perhaps by his presence, either way he didn't turn back. And then there was silence.