Chapter Seven – Labyrinth

"That girl is here, my lord."

N glanced over at the two grunts who approached him gasping for air, as if they had just done a marathon rather than a hundred yard dash. One of the grunts jabbed a thumb over his shoulder towards the entrance of the park and nodded, but he was too out of breath to say anything. It was all he could do to stay standing.

With a sigh, N looked at the Ferris wheel towering in the corner of the park. Now was as good a time as any, he supposed…

"Keep moving. I'll take care of her," N ordered, and the two men bowed to him before running off into the depths of the Nimbasa amusement park. He watched them disappear into a crowd of people, and once they vanished, he shoved his hands in his pockets and headed towards the park entrance.

The grunts were right, at least. N had already grown accustom to seeing that mop of brown hair and would recognize it anywhere.

He turned a little, pretending to be engaged in something other than her as she approached. When she got close enough, he let his gaze follow her for a moment. She wasn't paying attention to her surroundings as much as what was right in front of her and didn't notice him at all, which bothered him a little for some reason unbeknownst to him. So when he stepped right in front of her, she jumped, and he smiled.

"N! Sorry, I'm a little busy right now." Hilda put a hand on his shoulder and started to walk past him, but N sidestepped her.

"You're looking for Team Plasma, right?" N asked, and Hilda's expression, which was distant and focused somewhere behind him prior to this, hardened into something surprisingly serious. N couldn't help but be a little amused by this. He really was the enemy. "They ran into the amusement park. Come with me."

N never checked over his shoulder to see if Hilda was following him; he could tell without needing to confirm it. Even as they made their ways through the crowds towards that towering Ferris wheel, N knew she was right behind him the whole while. It wasn't until they were standing right below the wheel that he stopped, and Hilda nearly knocked him over.

He glanced around the area before turning to face Hilda. "They're not here," he commented, and it wasn't quite a lie since he didn't see the grunts in the immediate area. "Let's ride the Ferris wheel and see if we can spot them." He gestured to the Rondez-View sign, and Hilda's eyes followed the movement. "I love Ferris wheels. The circular motion… the mechanics… they're like collections of elegant formulas."

Hilda's expression was skeptical, but she still managed a smile for him. "Since there's no line," she agreed, stepping into the queue first.

N had heard that the wheel was built as a ride solely for couples, which had bothered him from the moment the rumor was spread. He wasn't naïve, and he knew what might occur on this wheel—but those couples wouldn't appreciate the technicalities making the wheel move and the equations powering it and…

Well, it was clear from the way that Hilda pressed her face immediately against the glass, or at least close enough to it that her breath fogged the window, that she didn't particularly appreciate those technicalities either. The only thing she cared about was finding those Team Plasma grunts. He didn't understand it.

The two were moving now, rising higher and higher in a consistent arc. It was now or never, while he had her alone.

"First," N began, and Hilda drew her attention away from the view and to him, "I must tell you… I am the king of Team Plasma."

Her reaction was immediate. She pushed herself further away from him, which wasn't very far in this enclosed space, but it was hostile enough to show her diminishing opinion of him. He figured he might lose some of her trust from this admission, but he hadn't had much of it to begin with. And she needed to know.

"Ghetsis asked me to work with him to save Pokémon. I wonder how many Pokémon exist in this world…" He glanced out the window of their gondola now. In the sky alone, he could see several bird Pokémon flying in the distance. There were dozens, more on the ground, some on Hilda's belt even…

"I want to get off," she said, and that was all. Her eyes didn't show fear, as he suspected they might, but there was certainly distrust.

It was silent for the remaining two revolutions, and Hilda couldn't get off any faster if she tried. But N followed closely behind, and it wasn't long before the two Plasma grunts who had run into the park were right behind them. Hilda's right hand curled into a fist, the left reaching immediately to her Poké Balls.

"My lord N!"

"You're safe, sire!"

N held a hand out to stop them from interfering, knowing that they had certainly already lost to Hilda once and would only lose again. At least he, being the Plasma King, would be able to buy them some time to escape, which they hadn't done the first time. He didn't exactly need their help with that.

"There's no problem," N assured the grunts, though Hilda's twisted face said otherwise. "You're part of the people we brought in to help us save the Pokémon. So, you're under my protection, as well. Go, quickly, and let my battle cover your retreat." He glanced back at the grunts, who nodded, and then turned back to Hilda. "Now then, Hilda, do you follow my logic?"

"Yeah. I got it," she hissed, "Lord N."

The addendum bothered N, but he forced a smile nonetheless. "If true, your words please me," he managed, and he really did want to praise her for everything so far. Now wasn't exactly a good time. "Ah. Then… the future I envision… Perhaps I can't beat you here and now, but I'll battle you to buy time for these members of Team Plasma to get away!"

He was always surprised at how eager Hilda's Pokémon were to serve her—and weren't they just slaves to her will? No, that wasn't what they said. They respected her and wanted to be by her side, and it was their desire to protect her from N that drove them now. Even his friends didn't completely understand.

When the Sandile from which he had enlisted help fell to her Palpitoad, the water-type bounced back towards Hilda. N had never seen anything quite like it—only with Hilda and only because of her.

"Your Pokémon look happy," N commented, and Hilda smiled. It was the first time her expression brightened since he told her who he was. "But even if I lose, is it different from the future I saw?"

The future—the one based on probability and the formulas he loved so much—was bleak. He didn't need any special powers to make that prediction. If things continued to move in the same direction forever, Pokémon and people would destroy everything. But it didn't have to be that way. N could change it.

At the battle's conclusion, N smiled at Hilda; the grunts had managed to get away, after all. "The result was the same…" he noted with a sigh, and Hilda raised her eyebrows at him. "But you… who are you?"

He didn't get it—why her? Why this girl?

Hilda's eyebrows relaxed, her lips pursed together as she shook her head. "N," she said quietly, "I'm going to stop you. I can."

"You're quite strong," N agreed, shoving his hands in his pockets. "But I have a future that I must change. And, for that future…" He stepped closer to Hilda, who stood her ground with her same saddened expression. "I'll defeat the Champion and become unbeatable, unlike any other. I'll make all Trainers free their Pokémon! Just try and stop me!"

Was he encouraging her? Why?

"If you want to be together with Pokémon, your only hope is to collect the badges from each area and head for the Pokémon League. Try and stop me there, if you dare." He backed away from Hilda, his steps slow. He didn't really know why he could talk to her so easily. "If your conviction is not strong enough, you will never be able to defeat me."

And the next time they met was at the Chargestone cave, where she had run into the Shadow Triad… He tried to replay that meeting over in his head to think if he missed anything, but all he could remember was her face on the Ferris wheel.

"Go ahead."

Rosa shot him a skeptical look, but N just gestured to the entrance. She sighed, blinking away her bemused attitude and going ahead of him. By the time he joined her down in the damp tunnel, Rosa had already sent out her Ampharos to light up the enclosed space. The lights from the streets above them didn't quite reach down here.

"You think they'd hang out somewhere as sketchy as the Castelia sewers?" Rosa wondered, avoiding a substantial puddle in front of them as the two walked down the tunnel. "I mean, sure, I fought Team Plasma here once, but that was Colress's doing. I don't think the Shadow Triad had anything to do with that."

"Well…"

"What made you think of this place? There are a lot of places that have shadows. I mean, Black City would've—"

"This is an inconspicuous place, and there are dozens upon dozens of tunnels leading to different parts of the city. It gives them easy access to a wide variety of places without being seen, and unlike Black City, it is completely cast in shadows," N explained, and Rosa pondered this for a moment. "I've known them almost my whole life. It's all part of the illusion. Even at my castle, they usually stayed in the lower corridors where no one ever went."

Rosa had to admit, even though they were treading through the sewers under a huge city that, frankly, wasn't that clean, it kind of did give the impression of a castle—in a very abstract kind of way. The city towered above them, after all, like the tall walls of N's castle or the towers of a fortress. The skyline didn't differ so much from a castle, and these sewers were… well, they were a bit like a dungeon.

A dungeon where the Shadow Triad might keep people? Well, it was possible. N did know them better than Rosa did.

"They were clean."

Rosa glanced back over her shoulder at N, who was holding that cube again—she had caught him holding it quite a bit in the past couple of hours. "Huh?"

He twisted one of the sides of the cube and let it fall back to his side, the chain jingling quietly. "They were clean with their work. They didn't leave any clues behind—just the trainer ID that Hilda must have dropped. They had to have made a mess somewhere, and what better place than in the sewers where no one would notice?"

"I'm sure Hilda is okay," Rosa assured him quickly, knowing well what sort of thoughts were passing through his mind now. "Cheren, too."

N didn't respond. He brushed past her, the sound of his footsteps echoing down the tunnel.

Rosa sighed, rubbing a hand against her Ampharos as she, too, started forward. Sometimes all she could do was hope, and she didn't have that much left to give.

Cheren wasn't cold, but he was shaking and couldn't get himself to stop. He hadn't eaten anything since arriving here, that one bite of contaminated bread aside. The Shadows traded shifts occasionally, but Cheren couldn't see through the darkness of the tunnel he was in where they would go when their shift ended. So, he mostly faced the open end of the tunnel where the bars were; at least that way he could see if anyone was coming.

Hours passed, and the sound of the Bisharp grinding its blades together to sharpen them became deafening. But it was better to be here than there…

He couldn't think of it. The noise was a proper distraction if anything. But he pulled himself closer to the bars at the end of the tunnel, grabbing onto them to pull himself up. He was uncomfortably weak, and the shaking didn't help. It took all of his strength to just lean against those bars on his knees, and after a minute he sunk back down and sat.

And then he heard something.

His vision had begun to go a little hazy hours ago, but he blinked away the fog and squinted into the opening. There was a filter of light coming in from the street above, but it wasn't as bright as daylight. And yet, there was light pouring in from somewhere else, one of the adjoining tunnels perpendicular to Cheren's.

The voices silenced as the light got closer, and he could make out the forms of two people and an Ampharos stepping out of the tunnel. One of them… had a ponytail, or so Cheren thought, but the second definitely had weird bun-pigtails.

"Rosa. N…" Cheren pulled himself back up and reached a hand through the bars towards them. Should he call out to them? Should he—no, that would give them away to the Shadow Triad. But how else would they find him?

"Our lord N is here."

Cheren turned back around, and the number of Shadows had doubled. The one who had taken up guard, sitting comfortably against the wall, looked up at a second one. The sitting Shadow chuckled, and the Bisharp across from him stood up.

"Shit," Cheren muttered, looking back out the end of the tunnel. Rosa and N were heading towards another tunnel. Well, if the Shadow Triad already knew they were here, there was no use trying to protect them. "Rosa! N!"

Something struck the back of his head, and everything went dark.

Author's Note: I'll admit to those of you who that read this far that I'm a little disheartened. I feel that there has been a lack of interest in this fic. There are a fair amount of faves and follows, which I totally appreciate. And those of you who have been reviewing, I definitely appreciate that. I know that many readers now view stories via mobile, and it's difficult or tedious to review that way. I've been blessed through most of my fanfiction career (LOL, I've been here for almost nine years, I'm a loser) to have very dedicated readers. But I don't know…

Totally don't mean to be a Debbie Downer.

I don't have the next chapter done (I usually won't post an update until then), but I didn't want to go two weeks without posting a new chapter. Hopefully I'll get it and the next one done quickly and have another update soon.