Chapter Five – The Lost Ones
"No, no, no, no, come back!" Rosa shouted, and she spun around frantically. "Umbreon—uh, no, where did they just go? They can't have gotten very far!"
Reshiram landed at N's side, nudging the human with its head. I cannot smell him, it told him.
Cheren was gone. So early in their search, they had already met a danger that they couldn't match, even though they had defeated the Shadow Triad in battle? N had assumed that whatever dangers they came up against, surely with Rosa and Cheren, they would be able to handle it. Yet here they were, two in number now.
"Reshiram can't smell him. They've gotten away," N told Rosa, and she turned to him with wide and panicked eyes.
"How?" she demanded. Her voice was screeching, though it wasn't any louder than N's. She wiped a hand against her cheek and shook her head. "No, I can't accept that. They were right here two seconds ago! There's no possible way for them to have already gotten away—they were in front of us, N! We should've been able to stop them!"
Rosa's reaction surprised N. It wasn't that he wasn't bothered by what just happened—he was. He wished that he could have stopped the Shadow Triad, too, and he wished that time would slow down a little bit so he could accept what just happened. But there was a one hundred percent chance that time would keep moving forward.
Still, even though N was upset, too, Rosa's reaction didn't make sense to him. What was the point of panicking when there was nothing either of them could do now? She knew Cheren better than he did—though maybe they had met each other the same amount of times as N and Cheren had prior to this—but she couldn't do anything now.
Nothing, at least, except get him back, just like Hilda.
"Where do we even start to look now? Do we look around the rest of the mountain, or—or—" Rosa stopped and turned to face N. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be…" She shook her head again, a hand pressed to her forehead. "We just watched someone get kidnapped right in front of us. And we couldn't do a thing. Who exactly are they? Who is the Shadow Triad?"
Who, indeed. The Shadow Triad didn't even have names, or if they did, they never told anyone. Maybe Ghetsis knew them, but he had always referred to the mysterious trio as just the "Shadow Triad". Even individually, they were just shadows wandering the earth, not really people but not really inhuman.
"They have abilities that other humans do not have," N began, knowing that this was as good a place to start as any. "Consider humans with psychic abilities. Most cannot hone them fully, but there are some that can. The Shadow Triad does not differ very much. They can teleport—or, perhaps, move so quickly that they are invisible to the average human. It isn't clear what they can do, exactly, but they are powerful."
"No, not as powerful as us," Rosa countered, waggling a finger at N. "I've fought them… many times. You know them, too. They shouldn't be able to out-skill us, even if they can outrun us. If we can corner them at their hideout, in a place where they can't escape freely like they did just now, we should be able to stop them and bring them to the police or something."
The police… Rosa realized after the words slipped from her mouth that they should have just gone to them in the first place. Who were they to try to find Hilda? She had never met the girl, but here she was standing in the middle of a field with N trying to find the former Champion. Rosa wanted to help N—that was all she wanted—but maybe this was beyond her control.
That should have been the first thing they did, but now they were involved. Cheren was gone, Hilda was still missing, and neither N nor Rosa had any hint as to where they had gone. The only way they could move now was forward; she wanted to go back, not because she was scared but because she regretted their handling of that situation.
But it was too late for that now.
"Rosa. Rosa!"
She hadn't noticed that she was holding her breath, but when N's hand touched hers, she gasped for air. His skin burned cold, but that wasn't what shocked her. Rosa had the unfortunate ability to separate herself from reality when she thought too hard about something, and when she reentered her mind, it was like crashing into the ground.
N retracted his hand. He didn't make an effort to touch other people, but it wasn't the first time he had. He removed his hand from Rosa's with haste, however, knowing that this was a little much for them.
"I'm sorry." Rosa took a deep breath, and her eyes focused again. "This isn't helping. I've seen some horrible things, N, and you know that. But they were right in front of us—we could've ended this now, already, and instead we let one of our friends get taken. I want to find them. I'm going to find them, N."
N smiled, which earned him a returned smile from Rosa. "I appreciate your determinedness," he told her, and she laughed. "I stand by what I said before. Assuming that the events follow a linear path of travel, our best bet is still to explore the mountains. Unfortunately…"
"Unfortunately?"
"If Reshiram can't smell Cheren, it is also possible that they have escaped this area. Searching the mountain could potentially be useless, but why would they have come here if they weren't following a linear path of travel?" N shook his head, serious once more. Rosa rubbed her chin. "There could be clues up there regardless of where Cheren is."
Rosa nodded, and without another word, she began walking towards the mountain slope. Her Umbreon was quick at her heels, and N followed behind with his dragon friend.
It wasn't exactly an easy climb, and neither N nor Rosa knew what they were looking for. But there had to be something—anything—that could help them. There had to be some clue that pointed them in the right direction, but what could that be?
The moon had risen by the time they made it to a reasonable stopping point, and Rosa leaned against a tree. "I don't want to stop," she said, "but I know we should. Do you think Cheren is okay? Is the Shadow Triad… capable of hurting someone?"
N didn't know the answer to that. On the one hand, if he said no, which he couldn't say in full confidence, that would mean that Hilda was alive somewhere—or she was dead at someone else's hands. On the other, if he said yes, it didn't bode well for either Hilda or Cheren. He wanted to believe they were okay.
So, N did the only thing he could think of in that situation: he lied. He didn't believe in lying—it was one of the reasons he thought humans couldn't be trusted; humans were amazingly good at lying, and he hated that. But if he told the truth, that he didn't know what the Shadow Triad could do, then Rosa would be hurt.
In a game of probability, there was a fifty-fifty chance that someone could be harmful or harmless. But it wasn't that easy when human will came into play. Humans were not as simple as rolling a die or flipping a coin or drawing a card from a deck. The fifty-fifty could turn into forty-sixty or ninety-ten or anything else but chance. There were no coincidences, but there were situations that couldn't rely on chance.
"No, they aren't," N said. "Cheren will be fine."
When Cheren came to—the Shadow Triad must have knocked him unconscious, but he couldn't remember when—he found himself in darkness. There was a sliver of light pouring in from the floor, perhaps a crack between the door and the floor. He crawled forward, but a gate of some sort prevented him from reaching the light.
He stood up, running his hand along the bars of the gated wall until he found a handle on the other side. No good. He tugged on the handle to no avail, and he let his head fall against the bars in defeat. Wherever he was, it didn't appear that there was an viable exit. So, what was he supposed to do now? He wasn't so weak—no, he wasn't weak at all—that he would give up. Cowards did that, and he was no coward.
Ah, but he had been weak enough for the Shadow Triad to capture him—in front of Rosa and N, too. Truth be told, he hadn't know what had hit him. One second he had been asking for answers about Hilda, and the next, they had grabbed him and knocked him out. They had moved so quickly, he had no time to react.
But that didn't mean he couldn't get stronger still. He would have to redeem himself now.
The smell hit him after a moment, and he covered his mouth and nose with his hands. It was rancid and rotten, but it lingered like something old—not too potent but still there. After a moment, he got used to it, but he couldn't help but wonder what horrid thing he was currently breathing.
He pulled himself to his feet, glancing around the blank darkness. If only his eyes would adjust faster, he might be able to think of something. He blinked a few times, as if that might help his eyes, but it wasn't until a few moments later that he could make out several outlines in whatever room this was.
Cheren walked towards what had to be a sink, and he twisted the single knob on it. No water came out. There was a bucket in the corner that was dry inside, but he knew for what it was supposed to be used. Cheren suppressed the urge to vomit.
"Barbaric," he muttered, and turned around to look at the rest of the room.
It had to be a cell of some sort. But where would the Shadow Triad have brought him that would have a cell? It wasn't as if they would bring him to a prison—this was a bit more medieval than that, at least he imagined that was the case considering the bucket. And what access would they have to a prison?
N's castle… that was possible. Although, Rosa mentioned having been there a few times, so wouldn't she have run into the Shadow Triad if this place was here? Unless they hadn't been there in some time…
No, it was impossible to tell. He couldn't make assumptions until he had more evidence to back him up. It wasn't as if he could send a message to N or Rosa. Unless—
The Shadow Triad was a step ahead. All of his Poké Balls had been removed, along with everything else that could have been helpful to him at some point, like his Xtransceiver. There was no possibility of sending along a message then, not that he could tell the others where he was now. What was he supposed to do now?
Cheren sat down against the wall, letting his head rest against the stone as he closed his eyes. How could he have been so stupid, letting himself get caught like that? Was this what happened to Hilda, too? Had they ambushed her so that she couldn't fight back? If that was true, he didn't feel so bad about having been taken.
Ghetsis had to be behind this—with the Shadow Triad making a move, there was no way it wasn't the villainous leader, right? The Shadow Triad had always done his bidding, at least according to what Hilda used to say about them. And now that Ghetsis was out of commission… well, maybe he was planning something from the sidelines.
It hurt his head to think about it too long, so he opened his eyes again. Straight across from his cell, he could make out another, the silver bars glinting slightly from the small amount of light coming in from the door. He crawled forward on his hands and knees and squinted, trying to make out something that might help him.
The first thing he could make out was something small. He couldn't tell where in the cell it was exactly—on the floor somewhere close to the cell bars—and he could barely make out a shape. But once he stared long enough, he realized that it had to be a hat. Though grayscale in the darkness, most of the hat was white, but there was some sort of logo on the front, like a Poké Ball or something.
"Logo?" Cheren pressed himself closer against the bars of his cell, staring at the hat. The logo… was familiar. But why?
And then he remembered. It came back all at once, the many times he saw that hat flashing through his memory. How could he have not recognized it in the first place? Maybe it was because when he thought of her, he thought of her face, her eyes, her smile, her little nose. Everything else sort of faded away.
But the hat came back.
They were the lost ones, but now one of them was found.
He gripped the cell bars and stood up, everything coming in clearer as he called her name: "Hilda."
Author's Note: I was hoping to have the next chapter done sooner (I like to have a buffer of at least a chapter before I update), so I apologize for the slight delay in uploading this one.
Hope you're still enjoying this.