Chapter Nine – Homebound

The air breathed like whispers as Hilda approached her home region, a place that some might say she forgot almost a year ago when she left. In reality, not a day passed that she did not think of the life she left behind in Unova. She yearned for the flavorful food only her mom could make… for the rich and dynamic culture that technology provided… for the friends still waiting for her to come home.

She made a promise to herself that she wouldn't return to Unova until she found one of those friends, only this one wasn't waiting for her at home. Maybe she normally shouldn't have gone to such extreme lengths, but her heart ached for him—to see his smile again, to feel the cold of his skin, though his touch was rare. Didn't he feel the same? How could he have left without her?

Maybe it was that thought in particular that eased Hilda's mind as she returned home without having found him. She was homesick, painfully so, and couldn't find enough reasons to stay away any longer—if he left without her in the first place, how bad could it be that she wanted to leave without him now?

So, she did, though not without a heavy heart. Even after persuading herself that maybe N didn't care, she still didn't want to leave him behind.

Convincing herself that the tears in her eyes resulted from the wind blowing like needles against her face, she pressed on. Just on the horizon, the mountainous edge of Unova stood tall. Once she crossed those mountains, she would stop in Aspertia and rest—her Pokémon had been flying too long, anyway, and what was one day more?

No one knew she was on her way home, anyway. On the one hand, she wanted it to be a surprise to the people who cared and wanted her back; on the other, she wanted to put off the inevitable: all of those people who cared would know she failed.

Well, who knew what might really happen? Maybe N returned home prematurely, too—she didn't know why exactly he left in the first place, though she had her suspicions.

Hilda hugged her arms around her Pokémon's neck, squeezing her eyes shut as they passed over the mountains. She loved every day, but every day didn't always love back. All she wanted now was to go home and return to the life she knew: no more searching, no more tears, no more homesickness. She'd find Cheren and Bianca and tell them how much she missed them.

The descent into Aspertia came quickly, and when her feet touched the ground, she let out a soft moan of relief. "Thank you," she breathed, returning her Pokémon to its Poké Ball, something she had been overly conscious of since the incident with Team Plasma.

Pokémon Centers in the other regions weren't as advanced as the Centers here, and Hilda let her fingers brush the walls as she walked inside. Aspertia wasn't highly populated, so neither was the Center. But, as usual, the nurse sat at the front desk, visitors or not, and the woman glanced up eagerly as Hilda approached.

"Hello! Would you like to heal your Pokémon?" she asked. Hilda had gotten used to not being recognized, since she was a nobody in the other regions, but she kind of expected something here. Oh, but she had abdicated before she left, hadn't she? There was certainly a new Champion now, though she didn't know who.

"Please." Hilda passed all six of the Balls on her belt to the nurse, figuring it had been awhile since any of them had a break. The nurse promised that it would only be a few minutes, and Hilda smiled politely as she turned to go take a seat.

The smile didn't last long. She squinted at an image in the window, one vaguely familiar to her even though she hadn't seen it in over a year. "What in the world?" she muttered, walking closer to the window to get a better look at the person standing on the other side. He was facing the other way, but as if he sensed her presence, he turned just as her fingers touched the glass.

She retracted her hand with a small gasp, her heart beating hard as the man nodded his head to the side, gesturing for her to come outside.

How did he know she'd be here?

Glancing back at the nurse once, Hilda walked outside—she was an idiot for going out there without her Pokémon, she knew, but Aspertia was busy enough that someone would notice if he attacked her. He wouldn't be stupid enough to attack someone in the daylight hours, though waning, especially when Team Plasma had already been stopped.

Besides, the nurse would be waiting for her.

The whole of the Shadow Triad appeared the second the door shut behind her. "Hello, Champion Hilda," they greeted in an eerily monotonous and simultaneous voice. It made a shiver crawl up Hilda's spine, but she hoped they didn't notice.

"How'd you know I was here?" she demanded, her voice just as strong as she remembered. Maybe it was second nature to be the hero she apparently was. "I just came back."

"We've been watching. We call it a defensive strategy," one of the Shadows explained, as if that really offered any explanation at all. They had been waiting for her every day? How did they know that she'd come from the southwest? Unless… they had someone follow her in the first place? But what were the odds?

Hilda took a step back towards the door, but it wasn't the move the Shadow Triad desired. They surrounded her, but she couldn't even muster a scream before they pulled her away with a hand over her mouth.

Someone saw—someone had to have seen! She was standing right in front of the Pokémon Center just moments ago.

But when she opened her eyes again, the mountains stood close again, and the expansive field in front of her leading up to them practically glowed in the setting sun. The Shadows let go of her and spread out, and Hilda hesitated a moment. There was no reason why they ought to give her freedom now, not once they kidnapped her. This wasn't as simple as wanted to talk.

The Pawniards that stepped out from behind the Shadows did not look friendly, less so than they naturally appeared. Her head rushed for a moment—this all happened so fast; she just got back, she just dropped off her Pokémon. If only she had just waited, but who was to say that they wouldn't have taken her while the nurse's back was turned? The Shadow Triad had the power to do so, inhuman or otherwise.

No one knew Hilda had made it back to Unova; the only thing anyone—at least anyone in the other regions—knew was that she was on her way home. Yes, that was the only thing confirmed; she was in limbo. No wondered the Triad was waiting.

Her breath came out in puffs, and it was as one clouded her vision that she turned.

She didn't run very far before a blade caught her arm, and she tripped and rolled along the grass. Her whole body burned, and she gritted her teeth in pain—the cut dug deep into her skin. But despite the pain, despite the blood, and despite the tears that brimmed in her eyes, Hilda forced herself to reach into her bag and finger through everything in it.

"Our apologies," she heard one of the Shadows say from just above her. "We have a trip to make, and we can only carry you conscious so far."

As she rose from the ground, she let her hand fall out of her bag, and with it dropped the only clue she could give: her ID. Blood dripped off her fingertips like bathwater, but the pain didn't stop her from smiling at the small success.

There was a rumor in Unova that once someone escaped from their homeland, they never returned.

Rosa rubbed her Arcanine's nose, Cheren's black hair barely visible around the dog's giant head. "Can you smell anything? The Shadows? N? Hilda?"

"You won't be able to find them that way," Cheren began, his voice tired. He hadn't been able to explain where Hilda was since both times Cheren had been moved to or from the area, he had been unconscious. "I don't think the Shadows can be tracked; their superhuman powers sort of… nullify tracking abilities. And if N is with them, it should mask his smell, too. As for Hilda…" He didn't offer anything more, just let his voice trail off.

Rosa frowned, lowering her hand from the beast in front of her and rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Well… do we do what we set off to do and rescue Hilda, or do we save N first? I mean… if it's as you say, N can't be expected to take care of himself when there are the lives of Pokémon on the line. But… Hilda…"

"We need to go to Hilda now… before we find N. Please."

She couldn't tell if his voice shook now because of his exhaustion, as before, or because of something else, but… Rosa would do anything Cheren wanted. At this point, she owed him that. Even though N had saved Rosa's life once before, the sad truth of it was that she could put him on the back burner for Cheren.

Cheren wouldn't think her a good person if she admitted that, so she kept it to herself.

"Look out," Rosa ordered, jumping up on her Arcanine behind Cheren. He moved forward on its back only barely, which didn't leave much room for Rosa. She wrapped her arms around Cheren, grabbing onto some of the thicker tuffs of fur on Arcanine's neck. "We're running. Let's go."

Arcanine could still move with haste even with the weight of two humans on its back, and Ampharos, still providing their light, ran awkwardly behind them. Eventually it gave up and followed on all fours, unable to keep up otherwise.

They maneuvered through the tunnels like a scavenger hunt through a maze, and the minutes ticked on with no results. Certainly Cheren had been kept in the sewers before, too, back in the makeshift cell near Hilda. But even though there had not been enough light there to discern a proper location, nothing looked right as they traveled.

But… he remembered a door…

Light had filtered in through below a door… and there was a sink, too—a bucket…

"I have an idea," Cheren whispered, tugging gently on a tuff of Arcanine's fur, as if to relay a message, and the beast turned at the nearest left.

In some sewers, there were maintenance and control rooms depending on the size of the structure. Some, depending on how deep into the sewers those rooms were, probably wouldn't be used anymore—not when there were so many Pokémon wandering around deep in the sewer. And so long as the workers had access to a few of the rooms, they wouldn't need access to the deeper ones.

It would be easy enough for the Shadow Triad to take over one of the maintenance rooms and transform it into a makeshift cell.

They moved even further into the sewers, and the stench in the air became more potent—the stench that Cheren remembered almost perfectly, the stench that had made him want to throw up and had. They were headed in the right direction now.

"There." Cheren sat up, stifling a groan of pain, and pointed to a door up some stairs.

He began to slide off Arcanine's back before Rosa could even move, only to collapse beneath his own weight as his first foot hit the ground. Rosa gasped, jumping off next to him and pulling him back to his feet. Cheren practically pushed her off, pulling himself towards the stairs and holding onto the handrail for support.

"Cheren!" Rosa shouted, only to be ignored.

It took him awhile to make it up the stairs, and Rosa held her hands up cautiously behind him in fear that he might fall. But as he reached the top, he fell against the door, and it opened and released the stench that had been building up for years in that room. The horrible smell of the sewers was not as rancid as this, despite this one being less potent.

"What is that?" Rosa plugged her nose, lingering in the doorway as Cheren made his way inside the room. She sighed when he didn't respond, gesturing for her Arcanine to wait outside and for Ampharos to follow them in.

She almost wished she hadn't.

Cheren fell to his knees again, reaching through a set of bars and grabbing a dirty pink and white hat. His hands shook so violently that he dropped it several times, and eventually Rosa dropped to her knees beside him and took it. The hat hadn't been worn in years, that was for sure, but there was still a single hair attached to the Velcro on the back.

But more important than the hat was what lay beyond it. Rosa's bottom lip quivered, tears forming in her eyes for a person she never even met.

There wasn't much left of Hilda but clothes, and these were clothes Cheren recognized well. It was a favorite outfit of Hilda's—short-shorts, with the pockets hanging out the bottoms, and a white t-shirt with a black vest thrown on over it. It was fitting that she would have returned to Unova wearing the outfit she saved it in.

Beneath those clothes was not her slightly tanned skin, which had always been so smooth that Cheren found himself subconsciously touching every now and again—he'd grabbed her hand as she went to move away just so he could brush her thumb over it. She had always been so thin, but her skin held a certain thickness that was wildly attractive to him.

Hilda was there, all right—just not as much as she had been before.

Rosa clasped a hand against her mouth, screaming out against it. Never in her life did she think she would ever see anything so horrible and so real. And when she screamed, even muffled by her hand, the sound echoed louder in the room, and it made everything seem that much worse. This was reality.

Cheren's voice broke as he stated the obvious, but it was something that he had been unable to say before. And that reality—the one that they now lived in—felt all the more severe and cruel, and no one ever wanted this.

"H-Hilda," Cheren choked out, "is dead."

Author's Note: For those of you who have been following me for awhile, you know I tend to be pretty… nice, I guess, despite all of the angst in some of my fics. The characters always live. Not this time.

Anyway, I mentioned this in my update for "Say I Do" yesterday, but in case there are readers here that don't read that one… I got a big-girl job! I started this week, and while I don't anticipate it affecting the speed of my updates, in case there ever is a bit of a delay, it's probably because of that. Again, I don't think it'll be a problem, but I just want to give a heads up.