LEFT YOU AT QUITE A CLIFFHANGER DIDN'T I?! HEHEHEH x3 whatever, here's Chapter 16 for you! Well stop reading this, the chapter is right below! :D

Zeke's POV

Everything… hurt.

My whole body felt limp and sore, and there was a monstrous headache that I couldn't shake off. My arms would tremble when I tried to move them and the area around me was freezing. I was extremely tired and exhausted. Pain was everywhere; in my tail, my arms, my head, my stomach, almost like I was beaten till my tail looked like a shriveled up rope and my head looked like a deflated balloon.

I forced my eyes to open. Everything was blurry at first while I adjusted to my surroundings, but I was able to see that most of the area was brown and gray. I shifted on the cold flat surface below me, shivering at the frigid temperature that nipped at my skin, and blinked a couple times to help my eyesight. Lines started to form and I could make out shapes, mostly rectangles. Finally when I got in a sitting-up position, I saw I was in a steel cage. Outside the cage was dirt and sands everywhere. My head spun around at all the questions that hit me, but the one thing that I really wanted answered was why I was in a cage. Did I do something bad?

"Look who's up," a familiar voice groaned. Instantly I turned my head around, seeing that Shadow and Rachel were standing near me with ticked-off expressions.

I was glad they were there, but it was starting to increase my fear. Something bad happened to all of us, except Illusion. There were so many things I needed to ask, but I had to have my main question answered first. "Why are we in a cage?"

The mutant snivy scoffed and folded his arms. "We were ambushed by a snobby eevee and lillipup, than taken here," he hissed. His voice was filled with hatred and animosity.

"Taken where?"

"To… Team Plasma's secret base," Rachel whimpered. Unlike Shadow's voice, hers was filled with despair and anguish. My eyes shot wide open. We were in Team Plasma's secret base?!

"What happened?!"

The mutant snivy scoffed again. "Like I said, we were ambushed by a freaking snobby eevee and lillipup! They found out that we were going to try and stop them, and Illusion was a traitor… and told them… gah! Why didn't I see this coming?!" Shadow pounded his black leafy hands against his temples and screamed a few curses. While Rachel tried to calm him down, I let the new information sink in. Last thing that I remembered was lounging around on Illusion's shoulder when I saw someone, than I tried to warn Illusion but someone grabbed me, and then everything was blank.

My eyes shrank when I let the part about Illusion settle. He was a traitor, but he was so awesome! Illusion was the kind of Pokémon that understood the brightness in life. Shadow had liked things for a while but some reason he went back to being dark, and he started despising everything again. Rachel wasn't like Shadow at all, but she wasn't on the bright side of things either; she usually pointed out other's mistakes like a hobby. Illusion was dark with Team Plasma, but when he was released, or when we thought he was released, he took on a whole new level in life. How could he just lie to us… like that?

The lillipup was able to calm down my brother. Shadow still looked pretty steamed, but he appeared to be able to control his rage for the moment. Since I realized we were at the core of Team Plasma's hideout, I started to think about how we were going to take down the remainder. Yet I wasn't sure it was a good idea to either attack Team Plasma or escape. "Shadow, what are we going to do now?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he muttered. "We escape, simple as that."

Rachel nodded, agreeing with his blunt plan. I raised an eyebrow. "Why not attack Team Plasma, right here, right now?" Shadow glared at me, causing me to feel myself shrink under his gaze.

"Are you kidding me right now Zeke?!" Shadow snapped. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but all around this cage there are some of the toughest Pokémon I've ever seen! Just… just take a look!"

Afraid not to check, I avoided his searing gaze while I padded over to the cage bars. Each step I took made a bit of a clang sound on the freezing metal floor, adding to the creepy appeal. It was strange that we were in the desert and the cage was so cold. When I was at the bars, I wrapped a dark scaly hand around them and peered through a small gap. In front of the cage were two emotionless Pokémon that appeared to be guards. Each of them had a block of crusty sand on their back like a shell, and they had crab-like features. In the distance pass the unmoving Pokémon, I saw several others with dark expressions and evil-like appearances. I saw a couple of them were huge crocodile-like creatures with rough red skin and black stripes, and a giant set of jaws.

Rachel padded stiffly next to me, and I noticed that she still had her red scarf on, which showed that they didn't take our stuff. She lifted a paw and pointed to the Pokémon with the blocks of stone and sand on their backs. "These are crustle, powerful rock and bug types." Her hand pointed to the giant crocodile Pokémon. "They're krookodile, and they're amazingly tough ground and dark type Pokémon." She pointed to several other Pokémon, a few bisharp, a couple swoobat, and some Pokémon from a different region. There was a ghost Pokémon who had four hands and its body looked like a tomb or coffin, and it was called cofagrigus. There was something called a scolipede that was about eight feet tall and when Rachel pointed to it, its head sharply turned in our direction and I shuddered. There were so many Pokémon there.

Trembling lightly, I backed away from the bars. How were there so many fierce evil-like Pokémon there? If this was the remainder of Team Plasma after the incident by the Pokémon League, than how were we supposed to leave? "H-How are we supposed to escape with these guys around?" I made sure to keep my voice low because of the crustle.

Rachel gave out a small smile. "Leave that to me." With that she sat down right next to the bars, some reason deciding not to let us know about her plan. After a few seconds of nothing happening, she dropped to the ground, paws over her muzzle, and tears streaming down from her eyes. I noticed one of the crustle glanced at her, but it did nothing more.

There was a pang in my heart at Rachel being so sad. Why was she crying? What was that going to accomplish? Rachel continued to tear up, her sobs growing louder, and she kept crying for a minute, which for me felt like an agonizing eternity.

Finally a crustle slammed a pincher down, than both of the stone home Pokémon turned to face the crying lillipup. "Can you shut up?!" one of the guards hissed, his voice stone hard and only showed anger.

Rachel sniffed a couple times before she got back into her sitting up position. "I-I-I'm s-sorry…" she sobbed, wiping the crusty tears from her eyes. "I-It's just… j-just…" She brought her paw up again and wiped a few more tears. The emotionless faces the crustle had turned into a mix of anger, pity, and despair.

Suddenly, her entire fragile act dispersed and a smirk made its way to her face. She winked at the two Pokémon whose buggy eyes slowly went wide, and then Rachel made some sort of goofy dance in front of the Pokémon. Both of their stares were locked on her, but emotion started to show and their strong stature faded. Pink hearts spun around the crustle, and then they closed in on them and disappeared. When she finished, her gentle gaze stayed on the two crustle, their eyes wide and smiles on their faces.

"What… was that?" I asked.

"The move Attract," she replied. I blinked as a memory came back to me. When we were back at Striaton city there was a purrloin who used Attract. When did Rachel learn Attract? Strange…

Recalling the memory back at Striaton city reminded me that the purrloin was also Illusion. My eyes went as wide as something dawned on me. If the Attract worked on me, then that meant that Illusion was a girl in the purrloin transformation, which meant Illusion could transform into different genders. I wanted to scream so much, but I barely managed to stifle it. Okay, that transformation thing with Illusion was officially way too freaky!

Snapping out of those creepy thoughts, I directed my attention back to Rachel and the two crustle guards. Both of the crab Pokémon were admiring the lillipup from behind the bars, their rough skinned cheeks a bright pink. Rachel struck a couple poses that seemed to get them deeper in their abyss of awe.

I nearly gagged. It was weird how I fell in love with Illusion who was a guy, or who was supposed to be a guy but… was a girl as a purrloin but in reality was a guy, but… it was too confusing! Long story short, romance was starting to really sick me out. I tried to ignore the longing gaze both of the crustle had while Rachel spoke. "Can you guys, possibly, let us out of this cold cag… oh, thank you?" One of the crustle used a pincher and dislodged the lock, the cage's door creaking open.

"Huh, well whaddya know," Shadow remarked. "You know we shouldn't keep that door open too wide unless you have a plan. We don't want other Pokémon here seeing that the cage is unlocked."

Rachel frowned a bit, and then she made sure the door was only open a slit so no one would notice it. "Well can someone else come up with a plan?"

"You can kiss me," a crustle blurted out. Rachel responded by reaching a paw up and slapping him, but his romance phase remained strong.

"Any plan that actually makes sense?" she spat, snarling partially.

Shadow huffed and spoke up. "We can sneak around behind the crustle. Those blocks of stone can definitely shield us," he suggested. Rachel shook her head at the idea, saying that there were too many Pokémon spread out.

While the two travelers started to send ideas back and forth, arguing how there was no way that they'd work, I tried my best to zone them out and look around the base. I stared at all the corrupted Pokémon and their trainers as they done various activities in the room. I wondered how big the base was, curious if it was just a few rooms or a huge underground system. I started examining the area, at the dusty walls, the sandy floor, the metal ceiling, the evil-looking Pokémon… wait, metal ceiling?

I stared up at the top of the room, seeing several metal beams in a carefully organized pattern. They must've been used to keep the desert from caving in on their underground base. I squinted and peered closer, seeing that there was lots of space up there. Looking closer at the beams, I saw holes in the walls that the metal went through, which meant that the beams were connected with others in different rooms.

An idea struck me like a lightning bolt. I whirled around to face the arguing snivy and lillipup, and quickly interjected in their chatter. "Guys, I got an idea." Both turned to face me with their slightly aggravated expressions, and then I pointed to the metal ceiling. "Look at all the room that's up there, enough to run around and climb on, right? We can use our vines to drag us and Rachel up, and then we can sneak along the beams into other rooms till we get to the entrance, and we're home free!"

"We don't have a home," Shadow pointed out.

"It's an expression," I muttered. "Hey, is it a good plan or not?"

Rachel sighed. "Everything sounds good, except how are we supposed to get up to the ceiling without others noticing us?" Once again she found a flaw. She was good at finding flaws, but instantly I thought of a solution.

"A distraction!" I exclaimed, turning towards the two lovesick crustle. "You two, you think you can create a good distraction for about ten or so seconds?" Both of the bugs glanced at Rachel, who was waiting for an answer, and then both nodded their heads. "Good, that should be long enough, right Rachel, Shadow?"

"Sure," both agreed with a shrug. "Seems good enough." When both noticed that they just talked at the same time twice, they momentarily glared at each other before snapping back to the current situation.

So the plan was in action, and the crustle scurried off towards a far corner of the room. I was a bit nervous that one of the evil Pokémon would notice that there were no guards in front of our cage and it'd create some commotion, than the whole plan would be ruined without it even starting.

The crustle managed to make their way towards a corner of the sandy room, casually walking so that not much attention was brought to them. They stood in the corner for a while, pretending like they were relaxing, regularly chatting, and acted like they were just taking a small break before they had to spring into battle for Team Plasma. Suddenly, one of the crustle opened his mouth and screamed, one full of fake agony and pain, and collapsed to the ground. Practically all eyes were zeroed on him, eyes filled with shock and curiosity. When he bellowed another scream, everyone was looking at the two and walking closer to the scene.

We took the short opportunity, so Rachel pushed the cage door open and the three of us dashed out. Shadow and I shot out our shady black vines towards one of the metal beams, as quick as we could, and then without hesitation we reeled ourselves in. Shadow had one vine wrapped around Rachel's torso so all of us could head up at one time. The beam grew in size as we advanced toward it at a rapid rate, and once we were about to collide with the beam we used an athletic gesture and flipped on top of the flat surface. Heaving, my vine remained tight around the metal while I just stood there, stunned, staring at the Pokémon below. I was extremely worried that they saw a glimpse of us, or that someone's attention wasn't on the crustle and instead at the ceiling and we would easily get caught.

That scolipede's antennas shot up and quivered a bit. It was the same scolipede that turned sharply around to face me earlier. I stood paralyzed on the beam as his head slowly turned around towards the ceiling, but while halfway turned another shrill cry shot from the crustle, and his attention resumed on his wailing. I choked down my sigh of relief as I retracted my vines and tried to relax my breathing. My tail was tingling with how close a call that was, and we were lucky that he was the only Pokémon that wasn't very concentrated on the guards. I whirled around to see Shadow and Rachel ready to run towards the hole in the wall a beam went through, towards another room, so quickly I copied their running stance.

Shadow led the way towards the hole, mainly because he was the fastest in our group. Rachel was second fastest because I was still not a full grown snivy so my speed was slower compared to others. Our feet and paws tapped against the material with each step in our strides. I was afraid that some Pokémon would hear our running from below, but fortunately no one looked up. The mutant snivy disappeared into the other room, followed by the lillipup, and seconds later I joined them.

The room was pretty much identical to the one we just were in, except there was a dusty tube in a wall. It looked like an elevator except it had a circular design and it was made of glass. A guy dressed in a Team Plasma uniform pressed a button on a panel next to the tube, and glass doors slid open for him to walk inside. Once he was in, he pressed something on a panel inside the tube, then the doors slid shut, and the tube carried him upwards till he disappeared, going up to the desert surface. So it even operated like an elevator; it was probably some sort of advanced machine they came up with so the dirt and dust wouldn't dysfunction the device.

"So now what, we just sneak into that elevator thing?" Shadow asked.

Rachel nodded. "What else is there to do? It leads up to the surface. Now do we need another distraction or what?"

"Maybe we can blend in and act like we're members of Team Plasma. It's not like everyone knows we were prisoners," Shadow suggested, earning another respective nod from Rachel. "Okay then, let's head down."

Staring at the ground below, I noticed that there was way less Pokémon in that room. The one we were in had about half the amount of members than from the previous one. There were probably more members in the first room because we were in there as prisoners, or the screaming of the crustle attracted more attention. Either way, it would help us escape easier.

We walked along the beams till we reached a corner of the room, since getting down in the shadows would help us avoid the eyes of Team Plasma easier. Shadow and I wrapped our vines tightly against the metal beam again, one of Shadow's vines around Rachel too, and I waited for him to spring into action.

When it appeared that most of the Team Plasma members were looking in a different direction, Shadow jumped from the beam and quickly rushed towards the floor. Within that second I jumped and followed the two Pokémon, and we soon were on the sand with our vines retracted, none of the few Pokémon and trainers staring at us. "Now, follow my lead," Shadow whispered.

He hesitated at first but Shadow walked out from the shadows of the corner, exposing him into the room filled with corrupted Team Plasma members. I shuddered before I followed his lead, and Rachel crept out last. A few Pokémon glanced at us for a second, unblinking, but they forgot about us and went back to their own business. I choked down another one of my sighs of relief and followed Shadow towards the elevator tube.

I glanced at Shadow and whispered. "So, are we forgetting on stopping the rest of Team Plasma?" I asked.

"Of course. Illusion set us up, and the only way to get to White Forest without being kidnapped again is to forget about this stupid team."

A Team Plasma trainer trudged through the sand towards the machine. We waited with evil expressions by the guy, waiting for the doors to slide open. He pressed a button on the panel, the glass doors slid open, and he walked in, but he kept a hand on the rim of the tube so we could come in with him. Good thing being a mutant made us look evil, and Rachel was mistaken for one of their lillipups.

The doors slid close with the four of us inside. An eerie silence began to set in, but the human broke it quickly. "So, you guys are meeting your trainer at the surface, right?" he asked. In response the three of us nodded in unison. I was so happy that he didn't recognize us as the prisoners. He then smiled and patted Rachel on the head. "Nice scarf Falcon. Did you get that for catching those prisoners I keep hearing about? I heard another prize you're getting is getting the final part of your training to evolve into a herdier. Where's Diamond?"

So Rachel was mistaken for some lillipup named Falcon; good thing humans couldn't tell most Pokémon's genders a part with just a look. I guessed that since he was assuming Rachel was that specific Pokémon Falcon, then Falcon was probably the only lillipup that Team Plasma had in the base for the moment. The only Pokémon I saw there were tough ones, and I didn't see one lillipup. The Team Plasma grunt also said that Falcon helped capture us, so Falcon was that lillipup that Shadow mentioned. So Diamond was probably the eevee.

In response, Rachel pointed upwards with a paw. "Oh, she's at the surface. Okay then, thanks Falcon." He petted the annoyed Rachel one last time before we reached the surface and the glass doors slid open, revealing the desert. All four of us stepped out onto the sand. Behind us the tube closed and descended again, leaving by a panel sticking out of the sand to get the elevator to come back up. "So Falcon, where's Diamond and your trainer?"

Rachel pointed her paw further in the desert, and the grunt nodded in understanding. "Oh, they're waiting for you in the desert somewhere. Okay, I won't hold you up. I'm on my way to Nimbasa city, so see ya." With that he headed in some random direction.

The lillipup grinned. "Well that was easy. Team Plasma still is lame," she huffed. "And if he is going that way to Nimbasa city that means…" She looked in the opposite direction from where he walked. "This is the way to Castelia." She looked back towards where he was walking, already nearly vanished in the raging sandstorm. "So finally, we're almost in Nimbasa!"

A buzzing sound went off, the ground below us shaking. My eyes went wide. "W-W-Wh-a-a-t I-Is h-ha…" I stopped talking, hearing that the shaking ground was messing with my voice.

"An a-alarm p-p-probably went-t o-off b-b-belo-ow," Shadow stammered. "T-They know w-w-we're m-missing!"

Rachel growled. "I knew it was too easy. We need to get out of this desert, and fast!"

MORE CLIFFHANGERZ *Evil Laughter*

Team Plasma is still after them! Rachel, Zeke, Shadow, will they make it? PROBABLY NOT, it will take some sort of MIRACLE to save them now, because did you see all those tough Pokémon?! Maybe a certain Pokémon may come by, OR NOT! It may seem like I'm hinting that a Pokémon will show up, but you'll only find out the truth in the next chapter! Well everyone, have an awesome day!