Annndddd chapter!

I know I know, it's been a minute lol. I'm gonna be deleting those three notes of explanation tomorrow or the day after, just so they don't take up unnecessary space for future readers.

Also sorry for this not being here when I said it'd, I had to do a lotta homework since I wasn't at school for a while, and yesterday after working some more, I started but I fell asleep mid-proofread. That's also why A Betrayed Champion will be here tomorrow.

Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN POKEMON

Chapter 7:

Discipline

"Shit," Dawn hissed, wincing as Misty tightened the bandages around her head. "Easy, would you?"

"Pardon me for trying to help you," Misty replied sarcastically. "Suck it up tough girl, this is for your own good. That Serena lady did a number on you. You're actually lucky she didn't end up damaging your skull."

"You're right. Thank you doctor Misty, I'll keep that in mind next time you're aggressively yanking bandages over my wounds," Dawn grumbled back.

Misty sighed, but continued on in silence. Despite her rude tone, she couldn't just leave her closest friend in this organization without help. Besides, she knew she was just speaking out of bitter pain, anger, and shame, a feeling that Misty as well as the rest of the team could wholeheartedly relate to in that moment.

The whole team was sitting in their office, waiting on pins and needles for Steven Stone to call them into his quarters and do god-knew-what to punish them for failing another mission within a seven-hour time frame.

"Maybe he got so mad he had a heart attack and died," Ash suddenly suggested.

"Dude, isn't he basically our dad?" Gladion asked. "That's messed up."

"I know, I know," Ash sighed, rubbing his head to try and clear his focus. "Sorry, I'm feeling kinda out of it."

"Well maybe he didn't die, but maybe he just decided to let the punishment wait until tomorrow?" Misty suggested as she finished tightening the bandages around Dawn's head.

"Um, Misty, I hate to break it to you, but it's tomorrow right now," Gladion reminded her.

"Well then maybe he just forgot about it!" Dawn said hopefully.

"How could he forget about something he was informed about ten minutes ago?" Gladion asked, his tone laced with a harsh annoyance that suggested his patience was running quite thin.

"Well he hasn't called for us yet," Dawn countered defensively. "And you never know, maybe he never will!"

And just like that, a sharp ping sounded from the radio system, followed by a voice that said: Would team 1 please report to Steven Stone's office. Immediately.

"Welp, so much for the wishful thinking," Gladion grunted, heaving himself to his feet. "C'mon guys, let's just get this over with. And remember: whatever you do, don't piss him off. Especially by questioning anything he says."

"Excuse me?" Ash asked.

Gladion groaned and slapping his palm against his forehead. I make one rule, one rule, and this is what I get!

"I said, I'm sending you all to school," Steven repeated, his voice tight with loosely restrained anger.

"No, we heard you," Misty said sharply, glaring at him. "What he meant was, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN YOUR SENDING US TO SCHOOL?! HAVE YOU GOT TRUBBISH FOR BRAINS?!"

Gladion slapped his forehead again, groaning loudly while Dawn shook her head in disappointment.

Guess we're gonna get the royal ass-kicking treatment today, Gladion sighed internally.

And I thought I was the one with the head injury, Dawn thought.

"I mean, if you idiots are just going to keep screwing up every mission I throw your way, I might as well send you somewhere where you'll learn to handle yourselves!" Steven snapped. He didn't seem to notice Gladion and Dawn's obvious despair, and if he did he didn't bother acknowledging it. But when the team just stared at him with wide eyes, he sighed, leaning forward in his chair. "Look, I'm not doing this because I hate you guys. If I did, I would've had you kicked out and you'd never be allowed to see sunlight again."

"Well good thing you don't hate us," Dawn muttered.

"But the problem is that you are my best team, and if you continue to fail against those bastards, then that means that I, as your employer and trainer, must be doing something wrong. So to give you a new perspective of the world, and a chance to learn some things the rest of the people here wouldn't be able to, you are going to go to school. And you are all going to like it. Do I make myself clear?"

Ash glanced to his right at the rest of his team, who all turned their heads to look back at him. He let his gaze wander from Gladion to Misty to Dawn, his thoughts swirling around his head as he racked his brain for something to say.

"And just fyi, you don't have much of a say in the matter," Steven added coldly. "So if your thinking about a way to get out of it, save your brain power."

Ash sighed, dropping his head. It throbbed with each small movement he made, and after such a long night that was mostly spent fighting people who, as much as it pained him to admit, were much stronger than him, he wasn't ready to argue. "Yes sir."

"Good," Steven muttered, leaning into his chair and letting his head fall back. "Now get out of my office. You've got till Sunday to prepare, and this is just my suggestion, but you should get started immediately considering how much needs to get done."

"But won't someone else take care of that stuff?" Misty asked. "I mean, it's kind of like a mission, right? So we'll be prepped by the workers like other-"

"While that could be an option, I'm afraid that's not how we're going to be doing things this time," Steven interrupted. "You'll have to gather supplies, sort out schedules, and register all on your own. I'll only be stepping in as the parent whenever I need to make an appearance. Now get out."

"It's been actually seven hours, and we've already gotten in deeper shit than anyone else in the history of Stone Corp," Gladion groaned, slamming his head onto the desk in front of him.

"All that forehead hitting is gonna come back to bite you at some point," Dawn called without looking up from the computer on her lap.

"Well I wouldn't need to facepalm so much if all of you weren't such idiots," the boy hissed tightly. "But don't worry, if it ever does come back to bite me, I'll make sure to pin the blame on you guys."

The group was back in their office, Gladion sitting at their desk while Misty stood next to the couch that Dawn occupied. Ash, who'd been quiet since they left Steven's quarters, was leaning against the far wall, staring vacantly ahead like he was lost in thought.

"I still can't believe we actually ran into them," Misty snorted, too wrapped up in anger to pay any attention Gladion and Dawn's brief exchange. "I mean, what kind of workaholics go out looking for the same exact fight on the same exact night?!"

"Us," Dawn reminded her, earning a scowl from the redhead. She decided not to bother mentioning the fact that it rhymed, so as not to piss her off further.

"I swear though, it feels like we're in some stupid story and the author was trying to rush things!" Misty whined, flopping onto the couch. "I mean, maybe I'm losing my mind, but I'm pretty sure we even said that we were gonna go out the next day! What happened?!"

"Steven Stone happened," Gladion grunted, his forehead still flat on the table. "He didn't tell us explicitly, but you could see it in his eyes. He wanted us out there asap. And asap to him means the second we step out of his office."

"And we can only assume that Cynthia lady operates the same, since they ended up being there too," Dawn finished unenthusiastically.

Misty groaned, but didn't continue the argument. "Well, can we at least get some sleep? I want a full hour before we even think about doing anything for school."

"We'll go to sleep after we talk about to main problem at hand," Gladion replied.

"What problem," Dawn muttered. "The fact that Steven probably expects us to go to school and manage like fifteen missions a day?"

"No, not that," Misty said, her voice low and serious. "You know what he's talking about."

Dawn's eyes twitched slightly, and the three of them all looked at Ash for instruction. But he didn't even acknowledge their conversation, just continued to stare blankly at the wall in front of him. Finally, after a long and uncomfortable silence, Misty cleared her throat.

"Hey, boss man, what exactly do we do now?" she asked.

Ash snapped his head up to look at her, finally seeming like he was engaged in what they were saying. He looked haggard, like he hadn't slept in years, and his eyes were dull with listless pain. "What?"

"What do we do now," Misty repeated. "Those bastards took Drew. We have to get him back. But how? So, what do we do now?"

"Well, I can tell you one thing," Gladion sighed, rising up from his chair. "We're not letting Ash leave. He already got a concussion from our first run in with them that he hasn't even gotten the chance to heal from, and that recent fight gave him permanent scars. Let's just-"

"Hold up," Ash interrupted. The authoritative comments seemed to finally snap him back to more of a coherent state, and he was now staring at Gladion with a slight frown. "You're not the leader. Why are you suddenly calling the shots?"

"Because one more run in with their leading ladies and you're not coming out alive," Gladion retorted sharply. "Look at yourself dude, you're already barely paying attention to this conversation."

Ash glared at him, looking like he wanted to keep arguing, but he remained silent, allowing his second in command to continue.

"Anyways, as I was saying, we need to focus on finding them again," Gladion continued. "They were clearly looking for us when they took Drew. So they had a plan to find us. Anyone got any ideas?"

"A They probably looked at a list of recently received missions to find out where they were most likely to run into us," Dawn offered. "It's not completely failsafe, but it gives them higher chances than just scouting out for us, which was what we did."

"Still salty that we managed to find them at the first house we tried," Misty grumbled.

"Hey, remember that it was between that house and the one across the street, and since you won the rock-paper-scissors round, we technically only went there because of you," Dawn reminded her.

"Anyways, Dawn what was your great idea about lists and missions and all that jazz?" Misty asked abruptly, blatantly ignoring the blunette's point.

"You already know what I said Mist," Dawn replied flatly.

"And it was such a great idea!" Misty exclaimed, grinning and shooting her a thumbs-up. "We should get started asap!"

"Not so fast," her friend said sharply, raising her hand and narrowing her eyes as Misty eagerly stood up. "We need to think about this. There's three of us, since Ash is out of commission for now and we don't have Drew, and they have five. Take a wild guess who's at the disadvantage?"

"Also we're in no shape to go out on yet another mission after two ass-kickings in a row," Gladion added.

Misty sighed, but sullenly sat back down. For a moment, they all sat in silence, thinking, until Gladion suddenly snapped his fingers.

"I've got it," he announced excitedly. "We go to school!"

The whole team stared at him blankly, Misty particularly worried that he'd hit his head, while Dawn and Ash were wondering if they were hallucinating from their own head injuries.

"Um, listen, it really is a great idea but, uh, here's the thing," Misty said slowly, trying to sound gentle. "Steven already came up with that idea, and we're actually starting school next week."

"Oh my god, I knew that!" Gladion snapped, rolling his eyes. "I meant, we actually make the most of this whole school opportunity. Don't treat it like a mission that needs to be over and done with. We establish good standings in as many environments as possible, make as many widespread connections as possible, and most importantly, learn and hone as many skills as you can."

"Um, great idea and all, and I really do hate to burst your bubble, but what kind of skills do you expect us to learn at school?" Misty asked, sounding exasperated. "I'm no expert, but from what I've heard, all you do is learn different ways to solve two plus two, how to identify adverbs, and not get run over while going from one class to another."

"But we've never been," Gladion insisted. "School does teach you all that basic academic stuff, but since we've already been educated here, we'll be fine in that department. I mean, in social situations, as well as those extra classes some people take to learn other stuff. We'll get better by taking advantage of this new environment, learning and adapting however we can."

"Wow, he's actually right," Dawn commented, exchanging a glance with Misty. "Maybe we should replace Ash with him for the leader position-"

"Hey!" Ash yelped, sounding hurt. "I get a little spacey, and Gladion comes up with one good idea, and suddenly he should be the leader?!"

"Hey, chill out dude!" Misty snickered, slapping his back hard. "She's just kidding!"

"And for the record, I have good ideas a lot," Gladion muttered, crossing his arms in annoyance while Dawn patted his shoulder.

"Alright, time for me to take charge," Ash announced, ignoring Gladion's complaint. "We'll do what the second in command said, and figure out a way to get Drew back later. We're all too tired to come up with good ideas anyways, so we might as well not waste our time and just wait until we can actually come up with something that might work."

"Um, you might be too tired to come up with good ideas, but don't rope me in with that group!" Gladion snapped indignantly. "And don't call me second in command just to spite me! It makes you look childish!"

"So it's settled!" Misty exclaimed, ignoring Gladion's protests. "We'll start preparing for school and coming up with ideas to save Drew after we get a few hours of sleep!"

"Um, I never said a few hours," Ash said quickly. "I meant something more like an hour of sleep, maybe tack on an extra thirty minutes if we knock out now-"

Too later. Misty was already smiling contently with her eyes closed as she lay eagle-spread on the couch, her huge fluffy blanket spread over her entire body.

"Literally how did she fall asleep that fast," Ash muttered.

"And why is she taking up the whole couch," Dawn grumbled.

"And where did she get the blanket from?" Gladion added.

Steven stared at the framed photo in his hand for a moment longer, before sighing and gently placing it on the corner of his desk.

"Sometimes I wish I did regret what happened," he muttered to himself. "Then maybe it'd be easier to actually punish them..."

He buried his face in his hands, letting himself stay like that for a moment before abruptly standing up and heading for the door. He went to open it, but before he could, he let out another frustrated sigh and went right back to his desk. He stole one last look at the picture, his eyes sad and full of longing, before opening a drawer and pulling out a stack of important looking document. As he worked, the room rang with a loud, piercing silence. The only thing that seemed to keep Steven safe from the maddening absence of noise seemed to be that picture, and if anyone could see it, they'd understand why immediately.

In the picture, a smiling young man with eyes and hair that shared the same shade of pale blue was kneeling down with his arms around two small boys. The first was a raven-haired, chocolate-eyed child that stood at his right with a huge grin on his face. The other, who sat on the bent knee, was a boy who wore a blank-slate expression, with one of his green eyes covered by his pale blond bangs. But despite the fact that Gladion seemed to be unenthusiastic, he, Ash, and Steven all seemed to radiate pure happiness from within the picture.

It was a split second captured in time, a light that seemed to bring a shred of life to the dreary office. However, such peaceful expressions were covering up something much greater, and if anyone knew of this picture's background, they would clearly see the shadows that hung over such a serene moment...