"Here he is," Jonny broke the silence, "our leader Grimsley."
With his back still turned to them, Grimsley took a generous sip of his crimson colored drink. He took his time, and continued drinking without restraint until his glass was empty. Only then he bothered to turn and face Bianca. His mouth was closed and expressionless, his blue eyes were only half open. He was unfazed by her presence, it seemed as if he already knew she'd be there at that very moment. Bianca was speechless, she was expecting to encounter him at some point, in fact she was hoping to find him. And yet, even though she had him right in front of her, Bianca was one step away from falling apart at his presence.
"Hello Bianca, thank you for coming," Grimsley said without a care in the world, making it harder for Bianca to utter a simple word. She was wholly at his mercy; she sensed he didn't consider her a threat, perhaps he did not mind her at all, there was no need to worry about her. This thought partially alleviated her grief; Partially.
"How do you know my name?" Bianca asked cautiously.
Grimsley touched his forehead, his boredom was palpable. "Please, let's not go through this," he said, "...I know things, not many, but some...the gym leader sent out a letter so I was expecting someone would come, something had to happen soon enough, it was unavoidable I guess, and, well...Cheren doesn't have many friends, does he? So, here you are, how's that for an answer? Is the mysticism lost?"
"What did you do to him?!" Bianca barely managed to stop herself from attacking Grimsley on the spot. She knew any attempt would be futile, her best option was to wait, for something, anything, to change her currently hopeless situation.
"Wait," Jonny interrupted, "her name isn't Colette?"
"No Jonny, she was just messing with you, her name is Bianca, she's one of professor Juniper's many adorably submissive assistants."
Bianca's eyes opened wide, filled with shame as she looked at Jonny. Meanwhile he looked back at her with disbelief, and anger.
"But it's okay," Grimsley continued, "everybody makes mistakes, and here we give everybody a second chance, unlike your entrancing friend Cheren. He wouldn't give us a simple chance to explain what we have going on here, so I made him stay here for a little while so he could see it for himself,"
"team plasma has had more than one chance," Bianca added scantily,
"I told you this has nothing to do with team plasma!" Jonny exclaimed as he made both his hands into fists,
"look," Grimsley waved his open hand downwards, telling Jonny to calm down, "once I saw that Cheren was too full of himself and would never change his closed mind I let him go, he'll probably say he escaped though, I'd let him have it if I were you."
A girl holding a tray filled filled with glasses approached the group and handed Bianca a glass of juice. She gave her a rather forced smile and then left them.
"As for you," Grimsley continued, "I think you'll be a bit more open minded than Cheren, you'll be willing to, at the very least, listen to what we have to say, won't you?"
"Do I have a choice?" Bianca replied as she reached the glass to her nose and smelled its scent: simply sitrus berry juice.
"You have two choices, you can choose to stay, and stay, or you can choose to leave, and see what happens, no harm will come to you either way,"
"ha," Bianca laughed sarcastically, "how do I know if you are telling the truth and Cheren has in fact escaped?"
"I guess you can't be sure, can you?"
Jonny looked directly at her, "I told you not to mess with me and yet you did but guess what, I'm willing to give you another chance,"
"what do you have to lose?" Grimsley added.
Bianca looked at the glass again and pondered her two choices. Even if what he said about Cheren was true, she still had to uncover the reason as to why Grimsley had taken over the remnants of team plasma, so it could be decided if an elite 4 member was to be publicly admonished, and his true colors, whatever they might be, uncovered. Still, Bianca hadn't decided if she believed what he was saying or not, he could easily be plotting her death as they spoke. Regardless, Bianca didn't have many options.
"Fine, I want to join," she ultimately said, filled with doubt and uncertainty.
Grimsley said nothing, he just snapped his fingers. Then he stood up and left the room. Another girl appeared and handed Bianca a set of clothes just like hers and everyone else's, then led her around the room all the way to a red door on the edge. It turned out to be a bathroom with five stalls and no urinals, probably the women's; it seemed like these people were more organized than Bianca first thought. Bianca went into the stall farthest from the door to change, unfortunately for her, the clothes that she was given were too small for her figure, but not because she was fat, in the least. Nevertheless the girl still had to bring her another set of the right size, which fit her nicely. She was officially in, although it couldn't be counted as a victory in any way given that her cover was immediately blown, right after she arrived no less.
After Bianca put on her new uniform a pack of girls went into the bathroom, led by a significantly shorter girl with her black straight hair tied into a ponytail by a red ribbon. She had black eyes, a pointy nose, and overall an aggressive, yet pleasant appearance. Bianca feared for her safety, she stood outside the stall with her hands stuck to her sides, without moving a muscle, as the group approached her, although they looked like they didn't seek to cause harm. The girls smiled at her sincerely for the first time, then proceeded to set the team plasma uniform that Bianca had brought in on fire right there in the bathroom, producing a lot of smoke.
A tall, startled redhead walked in holding a fire extinguisher. She hurried to put the ensuing fire out and gave every girl in the room, including Bianca, a smack on the head,
"we are still inside a cave idiots!" She then said filled with rage,
"oh yeah, I totally forgot about that," said the black haired one as she patted the back of her head.
The pack of pyromaniacs rubbed their heads to mitigate the pain from the redhead strikes. Then they got out of the bathroom, leaving Bianca alone with the redhead while the smoke dissipated.
"I can't blame them too much I guess, burning these is quite fun," the redhead said, rubbing her forehead in frustration, "I'm Lucia by the way." She amiably extended her hand to Bianca and they shook hands and traded smiles,
"I'm Bianca, so I take it you really hate team plasma now?"
"Yeah, I suppose so, I mean we do hate it, specifically because it ruined our lives. After it was disbanded there was nothing left for me, it was obvious I had picked the wrong side, our own families cut us off, well at least mine did,"
"so that's why you are at it again?"
"No, we aren't a team, and I believe we aren't even most of the remnants of team plasma, we are just a small group of people working for the only person willing to hire us. There's the first group that separated from the team and joined N, the ones who instantly became good or something stupid like that, as if they had been immediately vindicated and justified to kick our asses. And then there's a second group which for some very stupid and useless reason is still loyal to Ghetsis even though he might be dead, I don't know. So that makes us the remnants of the remnants of the remnants, who just aren't looking for trouble anymore. I'm not saying that we are not to blame for what we did, but we kind of paid for it in the sense that we are like nothing now, and I don't know what else to tell you, sadly team plasma was our side, we lost, the end."
The black haired girl who started the fire went back into the bathroom, holding her right hand up,
"hey Lucia, you owe me a smack on the head, come here," she said as she approached menacingly,
"you deserved it, you could've killed us," Lucia replied as she braced for the incoming hit,
"nope, come here."
She sprinted toward Lucia and promptly smacked her in the head, then celebrated while Lucia just stood there unfazed, done with her. Now satisfied, the short girl approached Bianca and extended her hand to her, causing Bianca to flinch,
"dude, what's wrong with you?"
She forcefully grabbed Bianca's hand and shook it, "my name is Helma, nice to meet you, I'm trying to be a human person why do you have to be like this?" She said,
"Hi, my name is Bianc…!",
"Haaa!" Helma screamed right at Bianca's face and ran out of the room, leaving Bianca with her hands covering her mouth and her eyes opened wide,
"I apologize for that, she's one of the weirder ones, but she is...loyal," said Lucia, "some of us did not have a place in the world even before we joined team plasma...on second thought that's most of us...let me show you around."