Meanwhile on victory road, the enraged trainers and their pokemon followed Helma into the cave, and this gave the remnants an opportunity to sneak inside. One by one they ran into Zinzolin's lair with a purrloin hanging on top of each of their heads. Inside, Helma and her pokemon maneuvered flawlessly through the many shadows created by the cave itself, moving through the darkness, punching anything they could, and hiding in corners before repeating the process. The trainers looked for her and also took notice of the remnants, who didn't waste time to hide in the shadows and use them for their advantage, following Helma's example. Out of nowhere a punch flew at a charizard and knocked it out, causing the ground to tremble, filling the remnants with hope at the same time.
The trainers wasted no time to throw their most powerful attacks at the source of the punch, the shadows on the walls, but nothing was there. Then another punch stroke furtively an excadrill and some purple paws appeared out of nowhere and teared into its metallic skin until it fainted, and then hid again, it was obvious who had the advantage.
Attacks kept coming out of the shadows and little by little they weakened the opposition, while the trainers frantically ordered their pokemon to strike every wall as if they were blind, sometimes even hitting one another, but also quickly fainting purrloins left and right whenever their attacks managed to hit them; there were just too many trainers and the remnants wouldn't be able to resist for long.
Zinzolin heard Grimsley's body hit the ground, but he couldn't enjoy it as much as he wanted to; it happened too fast. He'd have to find someone else to acknowledge his power before Zinzolin killed them too, just to achieve some sort of closure. Luckily for him there were a few stubborn people around. Sabrina and metagross climbed down from the destruction using the walls as the floor. They moved slowly through the now ruined hallway, and went back to the big and spacious main entrance of the equally big hospital, where a group of trainers had Colress pinned to the ground, per Zinzolin's mental orders. He would take all of the time in the world to savor that moment.
On his secret lair, Zinzolin raged again, but this time it was a joyous rage. He had tested Sabrina's power and what he had found was much more than what he thought he wanted, the possibilities seemed endless. Sabrina, on top of metagross, walked to the middle of the room and started channeling her power on herself. She shone brightly with a pink radiance all around her, and started floating upwards with her arms wide open and her eyes consumed with the same pink radiance as the rest of her and her pokemon. Zinzolin felt the grip he had on everyone's mind grow in power, everyone's eyes became consumed too, and they all let out boastful growls full of fury, with a sense of happiness. They had won, nothing else mattered.
Meanwhile on victory road, Lucia struggled to run away from the many pokemon trying to attack her. She knew the remnants wouldn't be able to hide in the shadows forever, there were just too many trainers, all of them much more powerful than them. Lucia sensed a different kind of danger, she looked around for her pokemon and was able to see one of her three houndoom, which happened to be the most weakened one, about to be on the receiving end of a devastating hydropump, courtesy of a malicious kingdra. Lucia immediately sprinted toward it, quickly put her arms around its belly and carried it away, avoiding the attack altogether.
The kingdra was unfazed by this, it ignored them and proceeded to shoot another cannon made of water, this time directed at a pack of purrloin protecting a remnant, fainting them all at the same time. It wouldn't be long before they were defeated, so Lucia chose to sneak out of the battlefield and find Zinzolin herself, to confront him on her own and finally put an end to their torment. She ran through the caves with her houndoom right behind her, and arrived at the ruins of N's castle.
She knew that Zinzolin, like the ritualistic dunce that he was, would be operating from the almost completely destroyed and much vandalized throne room. However, as soon as she turned a corner to reach the longest hallway on the ruins, a pack of trainers arrived from the other side to meet her and block her way.
"End of the road beautiful," the tallest one right in the middle of the group said arrogantly,
"is that what your mom tells you at night when she tucks you in to bed?" Lucia facetiously answered, and the houndoom behind her growled with her mouths closed, as if they were laughing at her remark, although Lucia was much more scared than she would ever let show.
"...You know," the tall trainer said, after letting the moment run, "I was actually sad when I had to blow up that mask on your face, I was afraid it would ruin your pretty doll face but, I must say, you still look alright, all things considered,"
"yeah, I bet you wished you looked just like me, I know I would if I were you,"
"SHUT UP!" The tall trainer shouted angrily before letting out an even angrier growl,
"no, never," Lucia scantily answered,
"Doesn't matter! Just go back and accept your defeat, cause there's no way you are going through here, I'm too much for you,"
"the trainers might be, but you are nothing."
Lucia's comebacks enraged Zinzolin even more, the trainers growled and raged before they went over and grabbed her from her wrists and shoulders, to which her houndoom responded by showing their fangs in a hateful way,
"wait!" Lucia pressed her pokemon, although Zinzolin took it as a plea to let her go,
"no way doll, this was fun while it lasted, but it's over...you should be glad you know, you'll help me polish my methods, this is just starting for me...okay let's see what makes you suffer the most," the trainer said before he and the rest of them pulled their pokeballs out and called their perfectly bred competitive pokemon, kanghaskan, machamp, garchomp and clefable.
"yeah let's..." Lucia said desicively, "houndoom! Don't mind them, breathe all of the fire you have at the ceiling!" She shouted, and her houndoom looked at her ready to attack, but unsure of following her trainer's exact order,
"trust me! Do it now," Lucia pressed them, while the pokemon of the enemy rushed to finish them. The houndoom jumped away and into the shadows around them while Lucia tried to break free from the trainers, unsuccessfully. Just then, three lines made out of flames shot upwards, and didn't stop until the entirety of the ceiling was filled with fire. Both Lucia, the trainers, and their pokemon focused their attention above them; the room heated up considerably. They could feel the fire burning on their scalps and shoulders and eyebrows,
"have you ever felt a fire like this so close to your faces?...I have," Lucia said as she pushed the tall trainer away from her and unto the ground, "what would you do if it happened to you?"
She pushed the rest of the trainers away, and they used their now free limbs to get on their knees and cover their heads with their hands, before calling back all of their pokemon. Lucia looked into their eyes and deduced that they had broken free from the mind control, just from how afraid they seemed,
"so this is what it takes for you to break free, fear? Zinzolin is telling you to kill me but you are so afraid you just can't do what he says," she said. The trainers crouched down and tried to crawl away but she grabbed two of them from their backpacks and stopped them before they could,
"you aren't strong to endure the heat," she said to them as they tried to run away like scared little lilipups trying to get out of hell. One of them turned to look at her. Lucia saw the fear of a kid in his eyes, and promptly let both of them go, desperate and scared. Just then she walked away, leaving the flames behind her, and her houndoom came out right after her, as if they were being born from the fire, which instead of hurting seemed to please them.
"Find Zinzolin, he must be close," Lucia said as she wiped the sweat off her forehead, but some of it stayed, and she continued sweating throughout. She felt her scalp itch from the burns too, as she started walking around the cave filled with rage, desperately looking for Zinzolin. She made her hands into fists and clenched them hard, being driven by pure anger which her houndoom noticed well, feeding their own anger and desire to hunt the villain from their new trainer. But it didn't matter how angry they were, nor how eager they were to find him, Zinzolin didn't seem to be anywhere, it was like he didn't exist.
Bianca crawled her way out of the battlefield too. Five of her pokemon, including musharna, stoutland and chandelure were all fainted. Her well being and safety were on the line as Bianca roamed silently around the ruins looking for Cheren, with just one of her pokemon left and a couple of purrloin walking behind her. She looked int the bedrooms and in Grimsley's room but all of them were intact and no one was there; it seemed like Zinzolin wasn't aware of those places. She then went up the stairs to reach the lounge and turned the red doorknob to open the door, and right then she heard noises inside, some kind of machinery.
Most of the lamps on the ceiling were broken so it was harder to see inside, but maybe that was a good thing since the place was all dirty and damaged; it was really a shame. She then saw Cheren surrounded by machines, sleeping on a chair with a strip on his head connected to one of the machines through some cables, while three white haired men looked at another machine,
"this doesn't say anything about how the idiot is resisting the mind control, that's the last thing I'll try," one of the men said,
"I guess we'll have to open his head after all," another one said.
Bianca promptly ran to Cheren and stood in front of him with her arms open, while the three men stood stoically and watched her with tired expressions on their faces,
"don't you dare touch him!" she shouted, and they answered her one after the other,
"We, the Shadow Triad, have always been and will always be the loyal servants of Ghetsis. And Ghetsis' ambitions will never cease! "
"Ghetsis' ambitions live on through Zinzolin,"
"it is useless to fight."
They didn't move at all, and they didn't have any reason to do so as their pokemon were already out of their pokeballs, and were more than ready to fight. Three bisharp appeared from behind them, they moved menacingly closer to Bianca until they cornered her, and yet she stood in front of Cheren and even smiled before taking out a pokeball, then called out her mienshao.
The purple, slender pokemon came out and clapped its front paws together, then stood on one of its rear limbs to prepare to fight, right when a purrloin appeared and hopped on its head, just as ready to fight as mienshao itself. The bisharp wasted no time and headed to hack some blood out of the purple pair, but they moved faster than any of them, gracefully jumping high on the air and then striking one of the bisharp with a powerful kick, sending it flying far away and knocking it down, while purrloin maneuvered masterfully to stay on top of mienshao. The two other bisharp swung the blades on their hands trying to chop Bianca's full fighting type to pieces but it avoided all of their attacks before jumping once more and sending another bisharp flying away to sleep. Then mienshao swung its paw at full speed, hitting the third bisharp on its head, and avoided another attack from the bisharp's blade before striking it down with another kick.
The shadow triad were unfazed, one of them produced another pokeball and called out a banette,
"use phantom force," he said to the ghost, and the puppet pokemon promptly vanished. Both mienshao and Bianca looked all around for the imminent attack but banette was nowhere to be found. Suddenly it appeared behind mienshao like the ghost of a giant beast rising from the grave, and sent Bianca's pokemon flying back to her, deeply hurt by the attack. Bianca knelt down, grabbed her mienshao with one hand and Cheren with the other, while the shadow triad approached her with banette in front of them.
"You fool," one of them said, "I told you it was useless to fight."
The men focused on her and banette focused on the weakened mienshao. A shadow triad member grabbed Bianca by the neck and lifted her,
"did you think you could beat us, what possessed you to think you were strong enough for us?"
"I know I'm strong," Bianca fiercely grunted at him,
"and yet here you are, defeated and defenseless, how can you tell me that you are strong?"
"I don't need to prove anything to you, in fact I don't want to, look at what you are doing, who you are working for, I don't care for you,"
"die now."
He started squeezing Bianca's neck while the banette prepared to finish mienshao, but skuntank appeared and sucker punched it before it could attack, and Jonny appeared behind it to help Bianca push the man off of her. Banette tried to hit skuntank with another phantom force but the attack went through the dark type like nothing was there, and another hit from skuntank was enough to take the ghost down.
Bianca tried to punch the shadow triad member but he quickly evaded her attack and mocked her with a grunt, to which she responded by grabbing him by the collar. She winded up, and released the hardest headbutt she had ever thrown, hitting the dude's face with her forehead, knocking him down cold. Jonny tried to do the same with another shadow triad member but he quickly overpowered Jonny and put him in a headlock, seeing as his fallen comrad failed to take Bianca seriously. However, skuntank tackled him as soon as it saw his former trainer struggling, and with the help of Jonny they immobilized their opponent. Mienshao got up and regrouped with Bianca and Jonny, and the four of them looked at the remaining shadow triad member, whose only option was to raise his hands and surrender.
Bianca held Cheren on her arms and took the strip off his forehead, then started shaking him gently,
"please tell me that you are alright, you are my dearest friend."
Cheren slowly opened his eyes and looked directly at Bianca for a few seconds. Such a sight had to be a dream, he already felt like he was dreaming, and then she was there, with a look on her eyes that made Cheren absolutely certain that every word which ever came out of her mouth was true. He took a look around and ascertained as well as he could that it wasn't a dream, then he turned to her again,
"...you saved me after all..."
"yes, and Jonny's here too, he helped me,"
"I'm glad, you are my dearest friend too...out of everyone in the world I'm glad you are the one that cares for me, now if you don't mind, I think I'll go back to sleep for a while,"
"of course, please get some rest,"
"thank you..."