Hey people, here's chapter 15!

SORRY FOR THE DELAY RAN OUT OF INTERNET (I know that sounds like a crap excuse but its true; I went over the limit on my broadband provider thingy and it cut me off so I had to wait another 5 days for it to reload again or something)

Please review! Only one more tiny little review till it reaches 50 and I'll have hit my goal for this thing and will explode with happiness! Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed already and favourite and alerted and what not, you make me so happy!

Sorry, got kinda carried away there. I don't own Pokemon.

(P.S. there's a little bit of blood and yuckiness in this chapter)

Xx

Chapter Fifteen: A Broken Past

-Black's PoV-

And so we walked. Through countless shimmering hallways we slipped like ghosts, hiding ourselves from the many guards patrolling the long, dazzling corridors while simultaneously trying to figure out where the hell in this never-ending maze my sister was being held, as there'd been no obvious signs of her whereabouts within the dozens of rooms we'd briskly checked through before another pair of grunts would quickly appear and we'd be forced to abandon ship and dash off into another branch of the castle. We were getting no-where. No-where.

A niggling thought posed the possibility that White had already been defeated and was now being caged up in a cramped prison cell, yet the blank, emotionless stares of the bored guards I observed while sneaking through racks of concrete pillars convinced me that no news of interest had yet circulated through the castle. But what if they didn't consider White and N's battle interesting, and it had already occurred? I pushed the thought from my mind before it could multiply…

Iris, who crept along behind me as we moved, stopped suddenly to peer through the pillars at a pair of grand, important-looking doors encrusted with intricate, golden-filigree patterns in the distance.

"Black!" she hissed quietly, quickly pulling me backwards and pointing towards the doors. "What do you think? That could be some sort of battlefield, they could be in there!"

I squinted through the blackness of the pillars surrounding us, only to notice several burly guards, a lot like the ones who'd attacked earlier, gripping heavy mallets as they closely patrolled the doors. "Are you ou of you mind?" I whispered, casting a mad glance across at Iris, who only shrugged.

"Got any better ideas, genius? Last time, my idea saved your ass!"

"It's too risky, Iris, there's too many of them!"

Bianca, who, with an exasperated sigh, poked her head through the gap separating us, grunted, as if the obvious solution was right before us. "If I may interrupt…" she mumbled condescendingly, as if the fact that one moment of quick thinking from earlier made her a total genius. "…I think what we need is a distraction…"

"Well, what did you have in mind, then, Einstein?" I muttered, rolling my eyes as she cleared her throat.

"Hmm…" She stopped momentarily, placing her finger idly on her chin. "Well… Cheren's a pretty fast runner…"

All three of our heads slowly twisted to stare at Cheren, who staggered backwards in the darkness as his eyes widened behind the frames of his glasses. "Oh n-no…" he stuttered, his face quickly fading to a deathly white shade as Iris, an impish smirk sneaking onto her face, stepped towards him. "You're not dragging me into this…"

"Oh, yoohoo!" an over-excited Iris cried from the other end of the hallway, flailing about crazily next to a stiff Cheren as the guards' heads snapped upwards in response. "Over here ye big, fat uglies! Are you looking for uuuuussss?"

I could almost see the life in Cheren's eyes wither away as Iris giggled uncontrollably next to him and the guards growled enragedly, threateningly etching towards the two and unknowlingly leaving the entrance to the doors unguarded. Iris snorted with laughter as she gripped Cheren's shaking arm and yanked him forwards into the next hallway.

"Come on, ye fat, lazy lumps, ye! My ole' Granny O'Shaughnessy can run faster than ye lugs can, and she's 87 years old, Arceus bless her! Haha, come on now, put your ass into it, ladies!" The fuming snarls of the guards drowned out Iris' jeers as they escaped further into the castle, slyly dragging the guards along on their trail.

In the darkness next to me, Bianca giggled. "They really fell for it! Can you believe it?"

I shook my head in disbelief that Iris had actually managed to drag the world-renowned wimp Cheren out in front of those thugs, getting him to risk his life in the process, no less. Cheren didn't risk his life. Cheren didn't even risk his life playing Mario, infamously getting me to beat the bosses so that he wouldn't have to lose any of his hard-earned green mushrooms.

Of course, Cheren still hadn't had the guts to cry out and get the guards attention, so Iris had cheerily dashed to join him and start hurling out insults (she was Drayden's daughter, after all, it was in her blood), while Bianca and I stayed behind to gain access to the room once the guards were distracted, a plan that seemed to be coming together nicely, so long as both groups managed to survive.

I took a cautious step outwards from behind the pillars, and, checking hastily to make sure both ends of the hallway were empty, I tugged at Bianca's arm. "Come on!" I hissed as we quickly skidded across the tiles towards the doors.

"But wait!"she suddenly cried as we reached them, just as I began to reach my hand out to grasp the handle. Rolling my eyes exasperatedly, I twisted my head to watch her as she backed carefully away from the door by a few inches.

"What is it, Bianca?"

"What if White's not in there? What if that's some sort of meeting room for sages or something? It looks important!"

"Mother of Arceus, Bianca, you say this now? Well, you're about three minutes too late!"

She scowled, digging her nails into my hand she held clutched between her fingers. "I know, I know, just be careful, okay…?"

I huffed, edging with another eye-rolling back towards the twin handles of the doors. "Fine! Now shut up!" Hesitating momentarily, I suspiciously eyed the matching golden handles, deliberating in my mind if what Bianca had said could be true. If not, we had nothing to worry about… yet if so…

With my free hand, as in the one not currently being tortured between Bianca's anxious grip, I gingerly reached forwards to touch the smooth golden surface of one of the elegant twirls that was the handle, and as it did, I skidded back in astonishment. From the other side of the door, the handle was being twisted, and, falling motionless for a short moment, was soon pushed outwards with a forceful sway, sending Bianca and I catapulting onto the hard, marble floor.

Bianca shrieked in surprise as an evil, spine-chilling guffaw bellowed from the doorway. Clutching at the stinging scrape newly-formed at the side of my head as a result of the impact, I glanced upwards, and instantly wished I hadn't.

"Well, would you look who it is…" the unnerving, bone-dry voice that held with it the memory of many encounters I longed to forget, droned. "…my good friend, Black himself! And with his little girlfriend too, now isn't that just adorable?"

Ghetsis lowered himself to stare into me with those unsettling, robotic eyes, his usual devious smirk plastered onto his face. "…How long has it been, my dear boy?"

"Not long enough!" I snapped, flashing my own cunning glare as I gathered saliva, and, quickly grabbing hold of Bianca's arm, hurled it into the twisted old man's face before finally pulling the both of us to our feet and taking off down the opposite end of the hallway before he could figure out what had happened. The brute cursed loudly and guards flooded from within the room as we made our mad escape. You've really outdone yourself this time, Black…

"Seize them!" Ghetsis screamed outragedly, as Bianca and I, panting in shock, disappeared from the view into another corridor. Seize them… How many times had I seen someone yelled at like that in movies, yet had never even imagined it would one day be happening to me?

Oh, holy crap, I thought, as I realised exactly what had happened. Holy freaking crap.

This plan had gone epically wrong. Why hadn't I freaking listened to Bianca? If I hadn't been so ignorant and just listened to the airhead for once, not only would the four of us now not be separated in opposite ends of the castle, but also wouldn't be being chased by Ghetsis himself's personal goonies. Crap. Crap. Crap.

"What do we do?" Bianca cried as she staggered behind me, losing her footing every now and then as I dragged her along. I only gritted my teeth in frustration as I examined the blank corridor in front of us, and her grip on me tightened immensely.

The trampling sound of impending footsteps approaching from behind spurred me to cast a swift glance backwards at the enormous cluster of heavily-armoured and muscly men lingering in the backround of our viewpoint, and as I did, I felt a hard lump rise and catch in my throat.

"Black!" Bianca shrieked again, her voice lined with prominent terror as we pushed on, the dead-end of the hallway now approaching. "Oh sweet Arceus, Black, they have arrows! Do something!"

The sound of my heavy breathing was all that pulsed through my ears as my eyes desperately scanned the blank dead-end we were quickly nearing. There was no way in which we could escape ahead of us; no way but through the long panes of the glass lining the enormous window overlooking the edge of the castle below.

I swallowed, the spit catching in my dry throat, as I cast quick glances from the window to Bianca. She blinked rapidly as she realised just what I was thinking, her reddened face quickly fading to a deathly white as she began to tug roughly at my sleeve.

"Black! No! We'll die!" she pleaded, clamping onto my arm in a hopeless bid to slow me down as the panes approached. I yanked her along awkwardly, the heavy trampling of the army's footsteps now pounding vigorously against my eardrums, and swiftly glanced back at her as she buried her face into my arm. Bianca was terrified of heights. Terrified.

"We'll die anyways if we stay here, Bianca!" I exclaimed as I pushed us onwards, my legs now starting to tremble with exhaustion beneath me, a sign that I couldn't go on much longer. Her panicked, tear-laden eyes looked up suddenly from my sleeve as I quickly entwined my fingers with hers. "…Just hold onto me…"

A shrill crashing sound echoed across the vast hallway as millions of tiny shards flew past me and the tiles beneath my feet disappeared, revealing now an underlying canvas of murky grey shadows encircling me. Next to me, Bianca let out a piercing scream as she sturdily wove her arms around my chest, squeazing against my ribs crushingly tight as the delicate crystals around us suddenly disappeared and a forceful gust whipped against us from below. I shouted out in terror as my hands folded across Bianca and we suddenly began to plummet deeper into the sheet of invisible grey sky beneath.

Was this it? Was this the way fate would finally claim me, crushed to tiny pieces against the side of the castle wall, remembered eternally as 'the moron that got them killed jumping out a window'? As wisps of thick grey mist darted past us, I began to wonder how I'd even managed to survive this long in the first place, when everything I'd done up to this point had turned to complete crap. I'd spent my whole life trying to protect the ones I loved, yet all I'd really accomplished in attempting that was sending them all spiralling into a pit of disaster, all because of that one, ingenious idea I'd had that day, almost four months ago;

Hey guys, wouldn't it be totally awesome if we all went on a Pokemon journey together?

Wouldn't it hell.

My face now burning a crisp crimson as a result of lack of oxygen under Bianca's iron grip, I clenched my eyes shut, my body becoming limp as I prepared myself for my end. In a matter of seconds, our bodies would be crushed against hard, jagged ground, the both of us killed before we could even figure out what had happened. Yet, for the first time in many long, arduous months, I found myself suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of peace, like a new-found burst of confidence. Even though I'd allowed my little sister, the most precious thing in the world to me, to condemn herself to a life of misery, gotten my friends entwined in the affairs of a ruthless corporation hell-bent on taking over the world, and forced Bianca to jump out what must have been a fifth-story window and plunge to her death, how come I didn't feel worried?

Because it wasn't over yet.

Another crashing sound filled my ears as a new layer of shimmering crystal shards propelled into the air above me, and the greyness of the monotonous sky suddenly disappeared, replaced instantly by a stunning kaleidoscope of blindingly bright colours. I screamed as more glass cut into my back, and Bianca and I rapidly ascended to what I desperately hoped was ground.

Softness engulfed us as gravity ruthlessly pulled us back to solid ground again, or, at least, something that vaguely resembled solid ground… Panting heavily, I blinked many times in disbelief, wondering if I had in fact died and was now simply floating in an ethereal world, because beneath me I could feel only impossible, welcoming softness. We'd stopped moving.

Bianca, her arms still squeazed rigidly around my chest, kept her eyes clenched shut as she buried her face into me and sobbed inaudibly into my jacket, and I, somehow, found myself capable of only gazing straight ahead at the shattered window panes lining the colourful roof above us. We weren't dead. We were alive.

Managing to pry my arms from around Bianca, I slowly stretched them outwards, wincing as I felt the pain of crashing through two panes of glass ripple through them. Inhaling a crooked breath, I paused to gather myself before finally allowing my grazed arms to fall limp atop the softness beneath us, which was a clumpy, beady substance that seemed to droop under our weight. Was this some sort of… beanbag?

Bianca's body trembled with shock as she slowly pushed herself over to one side of the enormous beanbag engulfing us, allowing her space to breathe and recover from our near-death experience as her anxious emerald eyes searched the ceiling above us in disbelief. Her mouth opened and closed several times as she forced out slurred babbles of speech, before finally she gave up and allowed herself to silently sob to herself, the shock of it all consuming her.

I feebly forced myself onto my knees, madly clenching at tufts of hair as I in-drew sharp breaths. My head spinning, my view drfited downwards towards the colourfully-decorated, impossibly enormous beanbag on which the both of us lay.

"What… the fecking hell… was that?"

Blinking away the thick blurriness that clouded my eyes, I made myself glance around the mystery room in which we'd crashed into, and felt a huge amount of perplexity wash over me as I did. My vision was met by a huge explosion, if you could even describe it that way, of stunning colours blasting towards me from every corner of this impossibly large room, which probably could have fit my house twice over inside of it. The floor consisted of a wide, sky-patterned carpet and the wall an array of bright blues and greens decorated with random posters of intricate geometrical patterns, and throughout every inch of the room were boxes of multi-coloured toys scattered out onto the floor. In one corner of the room stood a giant skateboard ramp, just like the one I'd always dreamed of owning as a kid, and next to it a pile of matching skateboards were leaning against a rack of tyres. Across from that was a full-sized basketball hoop with a basketball leaning against it, yet another item I'd yearned for all my life yet never gotten.

Could this be…? Was this a…. a… kid's playroom? In a castle home to an evil corporation set on taking over the world…? Now I knew for certain I was dead….

Bianca pulled herself to her knees and carefully followed my gaze across the room as her mouth fell open. A mutual sense of bewilderment enveloped us as we both sat, staring in disbelief, at our surroundings.

"H-holy crap…" she eventually stuttered, glancing madly across at me before scampering awkwardly up from the beanbag to her feet. She rubbed at her eyes in shock as she stood, gaping. "What the hell is this place!"

What the hell was this place? This was Team Plasma's castle, and unless they were planning to take over the world by manufacturing children's toys, I really could see no logical reason as to why they had an enormous playroom occupying a huge amount of space in their castle…

Speechlessy, I pulled myself onto my feet and the both of us stepped forwards cautiously into the rest of the room, as if we were expecting something to jump out from inside one of the toyboxes and eat us at any minute. For several minutes we wandered gingerly throughout the enormous toyroom, the both of us overcome with a strange, unnerving feeling the place seemed to be radiating as we passed, casting quick glances across at one another every now and then as we examined opposite sides of the room.

"W-what do you suppose this place is…?" Bianca eventually stammered, her lips trembling in confusion as she peered closely at one of the random posters on the walls. I paused for a moment to nudge my foot against the side of a gigantic train-set, watching on as the noisy little train circling the course continued to move hastily up along the multi-coloured tracks, stopping now and then as it hit a dead end before turning automatically and heading back down the path it had just taken.

"How should I know…?" I moaned, doing my best to supress the haunting chill growing inside of me. Despite the fun, brightening colours and stacks of never-ending toys, it was clear this room had some sort off disturbing aura about it, as if between its walls held the memory of a painful, lonely past.

Bianca swallowed as she sat herself carefully upon the skateboard ramp, brushing out the creases in her skirt as she gazed upwards at the shattered panes of glass on the ceiling. "Do you think they're looking for us, Black?"

I gnawed at my lip as I wandered absently across towards her, the pain of crashing through two windows now getting to me. "Doubt it. They probably think we're dead…"

"So… we should stay here, then?" she asked, sighing as she rubbed at her goose-pimpled arms. "I really don't think I can take much more running…"

"Then don't." I grumbled as I plonked myself into seating position beneath the basketball hoop across from her. Clenching my eyes shut, I suddenly began hyperventilating madly under the stress of everything, and softly banged the back of my head against the hoop's pole as Bianca gaped anxiousy across at me. The gashes on my back throbbed excructiatingly with every breath, and I could feel the stickiness of my blood rubbing against my clothes as I tried to occupy my mind with anything, anything, but this.

How could I have let his happen? Bianca and I were trapped somewhere in the depths of Team Plasma's castle having almost split our heads open on the cliffs surrounding it, Cheren and Iris, if the guards hadn't already caught up with them and killed them, were madly running for their lives through another part, and as for, White, well, anything could be happening her right now. This wasn't square one. This was beyond square one.

"Black!" Bianca cried as she darted towards me, quickly ripping off my jacket as I collapsed onto the floor. She shrieked as she noticed the thick pools of blood staining my t-shirt. "Jeez, Black, you're bleeding! Let me-"

"I'm fine!" I yelled, pushing myself defiantly back onto my knees with a distressed moan. I shrieked in pain as I felt another shard of glass cut into one of the wounds, and had to grab hold of the pole to keep myself up.

"Black, you could be dying! Let me help you!"

I hollered as I allowed myself to fall back onto my stomach, my eyes stinging as Bianca hovered bewilderedly above me. "J-just get the glass out… please…"

"Do I look like a doctor?" she shrieked, awkwardly outstreching a hand towards the cuts before instantly pulling it backwards with a distressed squeal.

"Holy crap, Bianca, I took two panes of glass for you!" I spat, letting out another moan as she prodded a gash carefully with a finger. "Just get the glass out already!"

She inhaled a final time, her lip trembling with anxiety before she eventually reached out to gingerly finger a large shard jutting out from a wound. "O-okay… just don't scream…"

Oh, I screamed. Iscreeched so unbelievably loudy as she yanked chunk after chunk from my back I felt as if my lungs could've exploded, and it was a downright miracle no Plasma members had overheard. The pain of even the tiniest piece of glass brushing against my open skin rippled through me like a bolt of elctrictricity, and I could do nothing more but to open my mouth and scream at the very top of my voice.

"Thanks, Black…" Bianca murmured as she tossed a shard across the floor. I tensed, my screams dying down momentarily as I awaited the next agonising burst of pain.

"What did I do now?"

"You saved me, dumbass. You shielded me from all the glass, even though that meant you got hurt…" she sighed as I erupted into another chorus of ear-splitting screams. "I never knew you were so heroic and dashing…"

I groaned, more from Bianca's annoying girl-talk than the crippling pain coursing through my wounds. "Ya well, I've had to be growing up as White's older brother…"

She sighed once more as she yanked out a particularily enormous lump of glass. "You're kind of spoiling the moment. You're supposed to say 'Don't mention it, I'll always be your hero, Bianca...'"

"You've really been watching too many rom-coms…" I muttered as my deafening screams died down and she finally pulled her hands away, letting out a sigh of relief as she wiped her brow.

"I think I got it all…"

"Alle-freaking-luia…" I groaned, allowing my body to fall totally sedentary as she began to quickly rummage through her purse, eventually producing a long strip of bandaging, which she waved in front of me.

"Sit up," she ordered, pulling lightly at my arm to get me to rise onto my knees. I cursed at the stinging of my wounds stretching as I moved, and Bianca quickly began to wrap the bandaging tightly around my chest. "I always keep some with me, in case my pokemon get hurt…" she informed me as I hissed under the pressure.

"That's just dandy… how did you even manage to even keep hold of your bag through that, anyways? My hat's probably floating around somewhere out there now…"

"I'll buy you a new hat, oh my dashing hero…" she giggled as she fixed the wrappings in place and tossed me back my shirt. "…when we get out of here, that is…"

I moaned, wiping away perspiration from my forehead. "You mean… if we get out of here… we don't even know where 'here' is…"

She allowed herself to flop back exasperatedly against the skateboard ramp, and covered her eyes as she inhaled deeply. "We'll get out of here, Black. We'll get to White and then everything's gonna be okay…"

"Easier said than done…" I groused, as I awkwardly pushed myself to my feet and flexed my muscles, wincing as I felt the pain ripple through me a final time before eventually dying down. Maybe Bianca did know how to dress wounds… "We should keep moving now…" I muttered, casually dusting myself off. "…this place is downright weird…"

Bianca nodded in agreement, though only comfortingly pulled her legs in closer to her as she clasped her eyes shut. "J-just give me a minute, Black, that was really tough…"

For several moments after that a welcoming silence hung in the air as the both of us paused to gather our breath. Bianca tucked in her head and hissed out jagged rasps as my gaze wandered across the room, eventually landing on a basketball lying in the corner a few yards away from us. For no other apparent reason other than boredom, I suddenly found myself striding towards it, picking it up in one swift movement and carefully lowering myself onto the bottom of the basketball-hoop to toy with it absently.

As I spun it around my fingers, I began to notice faded lettering scribbled across its rough surface in messy handwriting, and squinted as I attempted to read it.

"…Natural… Harmonia… Gropious…"

"Excuse me?" Bianca muttered from her position on the floor, as her gaze quickly flicked from the ball, to me, and finally back to the ball again.

"That's what it says…"

"Natural Harmia what? Give me that…" she quizzed me as she quickly scuttled to her feet, her exhaustion seemingly disappeared. She took the ball into her owns hands and studied it for a few moments, her brow creased as the thought played in her mind.

"What's it supposed to mean?" she asked me after failing to piece together any logical solution.

I shrugged. "How should I know? Who knows what goes on in this place…"

She bit her lip for many moments, falling silent as she thought it over once more. "…Natural…" she mouthed eventually, tapping her chin curiously. "…Natural… Nat-u-ra- ...N!"

I raised an eyebrow, casting my gaze down at the ball before across at towards the rest of the room, as I pieced together the possibilities. "N?"

"Duh! Natural stands for N! Isn't it obvious?"

"So… then, this must have been his… toy-room…" I shivered suddenly as an unsettling chill ran up my spine, and I became overcome with a consuming feeling of claustrophobia, as if the walls seemed to be caging me in, engulfing me in the accumulated suffering and pain they seemed to be radiating.

Bianca looked at me, and in her eyes I could see that same discomfort I felt in myself, telling me that she could also sense the athmosphere hanging in the room. How could this have been N's toy-room? Surely he couldn't have been the one subjected to pain like this, so strong, that it could still be felt emitting from the walls. This was no place for a child…

"Black… you don't think that he-"

"Forget it…" I muttered interjectingly before she could finish, tossing the basketball back into the corner with a huff and making my way through stacks of toys back towards the large doorway located on one side of the room. "We can't stay here. We have to get to White, remember?" It wasn't until many moments later, when I realised that Bianca wasn't following me, that I stopped.

"I… I don't think N is the person we thought he was…" she sighed, as she glided towards the centre of the room and blankly surveyed the piles of toys. I moaned.

"Oh honestly Bianca, don't you start too…"

"I'm serious," she muttered, crossing her arms as she turned to stare into me with hostile, tea-green eyes. "You never even gave him a chance, Black, from the very first time you met him. You thought that just because he acted a little weird around White that he was a threat, and because of that-"

"He is a threat! He wants to freaking kidnap her!"

"Well maybe we could have stopped things getting that far! Maybe we could have helped him!"

"You really think someone like him can be helped?"

She shrieked in frustration, and began flailing her arms in the air, signalling towards the room itself. "Look around, Black! Take a good look around!" she snapped as I groaned and folded my arms in exasperation. "You can see just as well as I can how creepy this place is! N grew up here with no friends or anything, and if you had let us, maybe we could have done something to help him get away!"

"We don't have time for this crap, Bianca…" I sighed as I twisted and shuffled towards the doorway. She let out an irritated groan before finally giving in and following behind me as I proceeded to yank the heavy, metal doors open with an awkward pant. The sooner we got out of this place the better…

"You're such an idiot, Black…" Bianca grumbled, her arms still folded in a huff as the doors parted. I shot her a dismissive look when, all of a sudden, I felt something strong wrap itself around my forearm and swiftly yank me forwards through the doorway before I could piece together what had happened. I cussed as my body was brutally pinned against hard, marble wall and an unsettling guffaw bellowed across the hall, as I recognised, without even having to pry open my stinging eyes, what exactly had happened.

Bianca shrieked as another pair of guards reached for her and held her suspended in the air within their iron-grip as Ghetsis' arrogant face appeared before me, his smirk intact, as his guard's impossibly muscular arm crushed me against the wall.

"Yes, dear Bianca, you just might be right on that one…"