Chapter Three

The Grandee

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon

I was floating. Was I dead?

There were times when I was near death before, while exploring the world with my Pokemon. Taking on steep mountains, swimming through endless whirlpools, trapping myself in suffocating forests; all of these things could have led my former thirteen year old self to death. But it never happened. Did this mean I was dead now?

The feathers wafting against my body could have been the clouds, and the warmth my body was enveloped in could have been the sun. Though, my neck throbbed with numbness. I opened my eyes.

No. Once again, I escaped death.

I was delusional, incapable of remembering anything. When I looked down, I realized the feathers were just a bed in a room, with the sun shining through a nearby window. The room wasn't mine, and nothing seemed familiar. My mind tried to fit pieces together from when I was awake last, but there was nothing.

As I got up from the bed, my eyes traveled to something across the room. It was reserved on a tall chair and gazed at me intently.

The hat. That damn hat. I ran over and grabbed the thing from its pedestal, and tried to rip the fabric at its seems. Now it all came back. New Bark Town. The sunset. Ethan. The harder I pulled, the harder it was to stand. My face grew hot and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes while my futile intentions faded, replaced by a frustrated scream and me throwing the hat across the room. I dug my palms in my eyes and dropped to my knees.

Was everything I remembered true? If it was a dream, then why was I in this room? Where was Ethan? Not that I truly cared at this point. He knocked me out as far as I knew, anyways. All of this seemed like a complete nightmare. If I were to wake up, I should have by now. But since this was reality, I needed to investigate. I needed to get a hold of myself.

The first thing I did was get up and look around, analyzing my current surroundings. It looked like a regular room, its walls were white, floor wooden, and furniture placed neatly around. Both the dresser and closet I found empty. There was nothing under the bed, not even dust. Everything was…normal. When I tried opening the window, it wouldn't budge but I dismissed the thought.

As I walked around I always paused to glare back at the Rocket hat on the floor, feeling paranoia creep up on me. Once or twice my mind played tricks when I thought it moved from one spot to another. So I pushed it under the bed with my foot.

My eyes went to another door. The only other door in the room that I hadn't checked. I wasn't about to believe it was another closet, so it must be the exit.

Before I could do that though, someone knocked at it a few times and and came in. I got into a defensive position, anticipating my capture.

It was Ethan. His head poked in and eyes met mine. I looked at him in disgust. He quietly maneuvered around the door and shut it. In his hands was a tray, filled with food, and he took it over to the dresser where he placed it down. When he did, his back faced me, and his face was visible in the mirror. We looked at each other for a few moments in that thin piece of glass, it seemed like forever. Then he came over to me.

"So your a…a grunt?" How could sweet little Ethan- my best friend- be a rocket grunt? I felt as if I was in another dimension where everything contradicted the real world. But there I was, and there was the boy- no- young man, who was clad in the bane of my existence.

My head was spinning and then he nodded, turning his head away shamefully. Tears began forming in my eyes again. Such a simple gesture, yet it took me by the heart and slammed me against the coldness in the warm room. A chill ran up my spine and I shook with uncertainty, trying to figure out what exactly was bubbling inside me. Control, I then understood, wasn't in my grip, thus I reacted in a state of pure anguish. Narrowing my eyes at Ethan's, I backed away.

"Traitor." I spat. His eyes caught mine, trying to explain his sorrow through them. He then caught a glimpse of the hat I shoved under the bed. My hands fisted tightly.

"Lyra-"

"Who is he?" He looked as distraught as I. And confused. So I repeated again, voicing my anger, "Who is this boss of yours? I know Rocket has a new head, tell me where he is!" I began to walk towards the door when Ethan caught my arm. Taking a deep breath, he spoke.

"Team Rocket…established Giovanni's successor two years ago. But you aren't aloud to meet the new one. Yet."

"I don't care. Whoever they are I'm going to kick their ass!" I tore my arm away from his touch and he withdrew as if I slapped him. Turning away once more, I grabbed one of my Poke Balls. But instead, my hands fell through thin air. Panic stricken, I looked at my belt until I heard a cough.

"Under strict orders, I had to separate you and your Pokémon…I'm sorry. I couldn't do anything in reason to help." Again, his face openly displayed shame. My eyes widened. So whoever ordered him knew me, they knew I was strong. Of course, I was the Champion. I was no one to be messed with.

Nothing would take my Pokemon away from me, I promised myself this once a long time ago. Training was my goal to secure that promise. Now it was broken. We stared at each other for only a few seconds until my newfound anger registered and boiled. It had me taking the food Ethan brought and throwing it at him. In a swift motion he avoided it and went to the door.

It was hard to breathe as I watched him, mentally breaking any sort of friendship we once held like a treasure.

"I'm sorry Lyra, but what you may see beyond your own doors…I just don't want you getting hurt. I'll have the mess from the food cleaned up and replaced." Out of the corner of his eye, I took in what might have been pity.

"Don't bother."

And then the door opened and he left without another word. When it closed, so did my eyes, finding nothing but the darkness to settle my nerves.

He left the hat.

I was falling. I felt like I was falling through silver. My hands ran through the liquefied air, hearing the sound of bells echo around me, softly vibrating in my ears, falling in sync with my heartbeats.

Of course, this was a dream. It was too calming, too perfect to be the real world.

Everything was bright, but not bright enough to hurt. I looked around and saw an endless view of swaying movements that looked like water, yet I was breathing in air. My hand moved away from me but before I could go any farther, my fingers hit something that radiated all around me.

Startled and confused, I tried again, but found that I could not reach anything a few feet from my outstretched body. When I went too far, my touch activated the glow again, and spread around until it faded. I traced around the places I could not go and felt panic rise up inside me. I couldn't move. Soon, I was no longer breathing air, but instead, sucking in water.

My heart was speeding up and my throat felt like it was expanding, searching for the oxygen that wouldn't come. This wasn't a dream, it was a nightmare.

"Lyra."

And then my eyes flew open. I sitting on the floor, head against the wall of my room, panting. Did I not breath while I was sleeping?

I shook my head and stood up, silently moving in the dark room (had I really been asleep for that long?). Pressing my ear against the door Ethan had come through earlier, I listened for activity I was hoping wasn't there. After awhile, I turned the knob and found myself bathed in a bright light in the outside hallway. There was no one in sight.

Did Ethan really expect me to stay in the room? I found it a but unlike him that he would think I could tolerate something like that. What I needed to do was find him and set things straight. Take him back from Team Rocket. But first and foremost, I needed to get my Pokémon back.

My mind ached at the thought of him being apart of this evil corporation, shrouded in the darkness that these members consumed, all to be apart of nothing and only to be humiliated once their low-life of a boss was beaten. There had to be a good reason why Ethan joined. It was my job as a friend to find out.

The hallways seemed like an endless maze. Turning right, then left, then right again. There were points when I looked through some doors, but only found the areas holding nothing but technical equipment and computers. No Poké Balls. Progressively, frustration itched underneath my skin. This made me hurry.

"Traitor." I remembered the words I angrily said to Ethan, and the way he drew into himself. I winced at my own anger and cursed under my breath, stepping quickly over the tiled floor of the narrow hallways. Did he deserve that?

The large doors that I soon came to step in front of held noises behind it. There was a combination of talking, walking, papers flipping, the humming of computers…and what else? Bubbling? What was going on? Are the people grunts, maybe? When I stepped closer, the doors swished open, exposing me to the room. My eyes widened.

Yes, there were grunts. Everywhere. Like the bug Pokémon, buzzing around, huddling in front of computers…Ethan was not one of them. It looked like, like a laboratory. But the lights weren't on, instead, a large tube in the center of the room glowed brightly. I stared in awe. The light it produced was like a star. I looked closer and saw something move. I gasped.

"Hey, you!" Someone shouted at me and I snapped my head back to one of the voices. But there were so many of them, I couldn't pin point the exact one. Instead, I found myself looking at a man studying the center object, wearing a long white lab coat and a clipboard in his hands.

Red hair was lit up by the blue bioluminescent color. Red eyes looking intently up, then back down.

"Silver?"

His eyes found mine. Oh Arceus. I could only look at his surprised look for a second until grunts started pushing me back out the door. My stomach turned and felt like it was burning me from the insides. It was him. It was him. It was him.

Was this the fate of my best friends? Working for Team Rocket? Those who we battled against; our enemies. We won to save people. We did it to save everyone. But why couldn't they have saved themselves?

Why?

My mind tried searching for something that wasn't there. By the time I found myself again, the doors to the lab were closed. Shut tight. No entry.

I sat on the bright tiles, curled up with my knees shaking and my eyes spilling tears out in my little cavern. There were footsteps that drew near but then abruptly stopped.

Ethan bent down to wrap his arms around me without a word. We were like that for awhile.

I hated the color red.

Chapter Three is now done! Chapters two and three had both ended pretty angsty in my opinion. Sorry about that -_-. Care to tell me your feelings about the story so far? I'm not positively sure where I'm going with it.

Hopefully I'll get the next chapter out soon, considering I'm on my spring break.

Happy reading!