TOUKO'S P.O.V
Chili passes around dinner – some kind of 'fancy' stew – to all of us. I look at it skeptically, trying to pick out any and all pecha berries that might be in there.
"Looking for pecha berries?" Touya teases me and I shoot him a death glare. However, all is forgiven when he tosses me some out of his own stew. I eat them quickly before he can change his mind and take them back.
"So," says Skyla, giving me a significant look, "now that we're an official rebellion, I was thinking we need to do rebellion-type stuff."
Touya drops his spoon straight into his stew. "Since when are we a rebellion?"
"Since Touko and I said so," Skyla replies.
"And when was that?" Touya demands.
"You weren't here," I cut in quickly. "No one was there but me and Skyla."
"So how were we supposed to know that we're a rebellion if no one tells us?" complains with an exasperated expression on his face.
"It doesn't matter," I say, trying to keep the peace. "The point is, now we all know that we're a rebellion."
"So let's do rebellion-type stuff!" chimes in Skyla.
"Okay, first of all, what the fuck is 'rebellion-type' stuff?" Chili demands, going in for seconds of his stew. I'm pretty sure going for seconds of something you cooked is immodest, but I'm not going to say anything in case Chili decides to cut off my food supply.
"You know!" Skyla bounces a up-and-down a little. "Rebelling … and stuff."
"Wow, okay," says Chili sarcastically. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the leader of this 'rebellion'!"
"Excuse me," I interrupt. "I am the leader of this rebellion."
"I've got much better experience at leading," argues Shauntal.
"But I've been on the run longer," Skyla pouts.
"I've been on the run practically my whole life," adds Iris.
"Yes, but who has the strongest Pokemon?" I counter. "Who's the only one who has a plan for this rebellion? Who's the one who caught all of you Pokemon of your own to battle with?"
"That would be you," grumbles Chili.
"Exactly," I agree, triumphantly folding my arms over my chest.
"Hey, wait a second!" Touya protests. "I'm completely cut out of this whole competition. Not cool, Touko."
"That's because you brought me sitrus berries, not pecha berries," I reply. "Which wasn't very cool either, Touya."
"Would you please get over that?" Touya cries. "They're just berries."
"Just berries?!" Chili and I shriek together. Before I can launch into a monologue about how pecha berries are the very best, most sweet and juicy type of berries in all of Unova, Chili starts talking about how many types of food you can make with pecha berries.
"All right, we get it!" Iris interrupts, though you think she'd be the most used to Chili's food fanatics, having practically lived with him her entire life. "Pecha berries are extremely useful in the makings of a variety of foods."
"Well, so are sitrus berries," mutters Touya, pulling his cap over his face.
"And they're good hair dye!" Skyla pipes up.
"What?" Shauntal says intelligently.
"Hair dye," repeats Skyla. She looks embarrassed for a second. "When I was younger, I went through this phase where I dyed my hair blond. And, um, I used sitrus berries."
"Seriously?" my eyes widen as a plan starts falling into place inside my mind. "Do you think you could show us how to do that?"
"What, dye hair?" asks Skyla. She shrugs. "Yeah, it'll be pretty easy. Plus there are yachi berries in this forest. If we find some, we could also dye our hair blue."
"Yay!" I squeal, sounding like Bianca for a minute, and give Skyla a hug. "I have a plan for how we kick off this rebellion, you guys!"
"Oh, joy, a plan," says Chili, still in his sarcastic mode.
"No, Chili, you'll like this," I tell him cheerfully. "We're going into town tomorrow. We'll go shopping for supplies and food and … things of that nature. Have a little fun instead of just hiding out here. Maybe even cause some trouble."
"Legit?" Iris looks ecstatic. "I haven't had fun since I was two!"
"Thanks, Iris," comments Chili.
"Sorry," Iris says apologetically. "It's just you can't really have fun or cause trouble when you're on the run and have to be super-careful all the time."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Chili says dismissively. He's all happy now that we're going shopping for food tomorrow.
"See, Touko," Touya says, finishing up his stew. "My sitrus berries came in handy after all, you have to admit that."
I don't. All I say instead is, "Tomorrow morning you and Iris can go searching for yachi berries so we can dye our hair blue, too, Touya."
I can feel him glaring at me, but I just calmly finish my soup and crawl into my sleeping bag. "Good night, everybody."
"'Night, leader of the rebellion," Iris calls cheerfully before retiring to her sleeping bag too. Chili says nothing, just takes away all the empty stew bowls.
I smile into my pillow. Touko White, Rebellion Leader. That has a nice ring to it.
SKYLA'S P.O.V.
"Morning, Skyla," Iris says cheerfully to me as she wakes up. "You're up early for someone who isn't coming to get yachi berries."
I've been up all night, actually, thinking, but I don't say that to Iris. "Morning. You might want to wake up Touya. He's supposed to go with you, isn't he?"
"Yeah," Iris answers. She grins mischievously at me. "I was pretty surprised Touko put me and him together though. I thought she'd want to go with him herself. It kind of seems like they have a thing for each other."
"Totally," I agree, pretending to be really into this conversation, though I'm actually focused on something else. I have noticed a special vibe between Touko and Touya, though.
"They'd be so cute together," Iris announces, sticking her foot out at Touya's sleeping bag to give him a gentle nudge. But she kind of stumbles when her foot touches nothing but air.
"Skyla!" Her yellow cat-like eyes widen at me. "Touya's gone!"
"What?" a muffled voice calls out. "No, I'm not!" We both whip our heads toward the sound. It seems to be coming from … Touko's sleeping bag?
Touya crawls out of there, weaving expertly through Touko's limbs (it seems like they were intertwined all last night, tee-hee) without waking her up. "You said something, Iris?"
"We have to get yachi berries now," Iris explains. She wiggles her eyebrows at him. "But more importantly, just what were you doing in Touko's sleeping bag?"
He turns scarlet. "Nothing! Nothing … inappropriate. It's just that Touko was muttering that she was cold in the middle of the night and so I went there to warm her up."
"We have spare blankets, you know," I piped up. "You could've just thrown one over her, Touya."
"Unless of course, you wanted an excuse to sleep next to our darling Touko," Iris sings out with a knowing look.
Touya pales. "No! I … I really didn't know we had spare blankets."
Iris laughs and friendlily loops her arm through his. "Let's go get yachi berries, lover boy." She waves 'bye' to me and they traipse off farther into the forest and out of sight.
Without Iris' distracting (but appreciated) cheerfulness, I return to my depressing thoughts from yesterday. I desperately wish that I hadn't brought up the whole berry/hair dye thing, because it brings back so many memories.
Happy memories, yes. But remembering the people in them cause so much pain.
See, Caitlin and I were practically inseparable before Team Plasm took over. And when I was going through my hair-dye phase, she was too. Because that's what best friends do – come up with strange ideas and look ridiculous doing them together.
Caitlin was the one smart enough to even figure out how to use sitrus berries to dye our hair. But I can remember the exact process, just like I can remember everything about everything Caitlin and I ever did together.
I miss her so much that it actually hurts my heart.
Cheer up, I tell myself. You're not alone anymore. You have your rebellion – and even Shauntal back! And if Caitlin knew about this, she'd go crazy about being part of this rebellion. She'd be so proud of you. Plus, in a way, Touko is a lot like Caitlin …
Not that I was trying to replace Caitlin with Touko. Caitlin was irreplaceable.
I drink a whole lot of our purified drinking water – I don't feel guilty because we're about to go replenish our stock in town today – and catch sight of my reflection in the clear water. I look like a crazy person – bags under my eyes, hair sticking out and all over the place, face pale and eyes bloodshot. I'm surprised Iris and Touya didn't run away screaming when they first saw me.
It's your own fault, I think. That's how you look when you don't sleep. So I get back into my sleeping bag and close my eyes. I fall asleep dreaming about a reunion with Caitlin.
What felt like only minutes later, someone is poking me awake. "Skyla. Skyla. SKYLA!"
"I'm up, I'm up!" I scream, jumping out of my sleeping bag. I shoot a glare at the person who had screamed into my ear – Iris, of course.
She grins at me sheepishly. "Ready to dye your hair?"
"Yup," I answer, twirling a burnt orange strand of my stringy hair around my finger. I've never really liked my hair all that much – one of the reasons I dyed it blue that day years ago. "Are you?"
"Definitely," Iris replies earnestly. She gestures to her beautiful dark purple hair. "Look at what a thick mess this is. I can't wait to try something new with it."
"I'd trade hair with you any day," I tell her honestly. "But our hair is about to look identical anyway, so what does it really matter?"
Iris giggles. "Touya and I got loads of yachi berries. We weren't really sure how much you needed."
"Oh, you'd be surprised," I tell her, as we walk out of the tent to where everyone else is waiting. "You'd only need about twenty berries to do a guy's hair, fifty for a girl whose hair is as long as yours and Touko's."
"We have enough, then," Iris replies, looking relieved, and she gestures to buckets and buckets full of yachi berries, along with the many packs of sitrus berries Touya originally brought.
"Skyla!" Shauntal greets me. "You slept okay?"
"Great," I say. "So, are you all ready to dye your hair?"
"No," Chili grumbles. He smooths down his flaming red mop of hair. "I like my hair looking fiery hot."
Touko puts a hand to her mouth to cover her laughter, Touya turns his laugh into a snort, but Iris – who has known him the longest – laughs outright. "You'll look great with blonde hair," she reassures Chili.
"Actually," interrupts Touko, "I was thinking it would be kind of strange for all of us to have identical looking hair. So maybe the boys, since there are less of them, should dye their hair blue with blonde streaks, and the girls can do blonde with blue streaks. Plus, we have more yachi berries."
"That's quite smart, actually," Shauntal comments, sounding impressed. I feel a surge of pride in Touko, it takes a lot to impress Shauntal. "You do make a good leader, Touko."
"She does, doesn't she?" agrees Touya, who won't look either me or Iris in the eye.
"Shut up, both of you," says Touko, but her face shows off a hint of a smile.
"Let's get started," I interrupt before they can start debating about it, and show them how it's done using my hair as the demonstration. It's dyed fully blonde, and I tell them to wait for it to dry before they start putting streaks in.
The girls take the buckets of yachi berries and Touya and Chili each grab a packet of sitrus ones. I watch everyone carefully in case they need help, waiting for my own freshly dyed hair to dry.
After they finish and switch berries (the boys get the buckets of yachi berries and the girls take sitrus berry packets), I demonstrate how to streak your hair while everyone else lets theirs dry. My hair is done, so I wait while everyone else finishes up.
Finally, our hair is done. "Remember, all of you," I warn them, "hair dye is hair dye, even in berry form. Don't get wet because it'll fade out."
"Got it." Iris salutes me in mock-seriousness.
"I look hideous!" moans Chili, staring at his reflection in the water. "I was never meant to be a blue-haired guy. That's for Cress."
"Who?" asks Touya innocently.
"One of my brothers," Chili answers simply. "The other one is Cilan."
Touya looks like he's on the verge of more questions – for example: Where are Cilan and Cress, then? - but Shauntal cuts in quickly, explaining, "Cilan and Cress were arrested soon after Team Plasma took over. They should be in jail now."
There's an awkward silence, until Touko picks up a package of unused sitrus berries and pops some into her mouth. "We should just eat these for lunch," she says.
"You don't want me to cook up something?" Chili sounds hurt.
"No, Chili, we don't want to waste these berries," Touko answers in a way that won't hurt the no-longer-a-redhead's feelings. "And anyway, this will be faster and we'll have more time to go into the town and food shop."
"Alright," sighs Chili. He grabs some leftover yachi berries. "I call these. They're my favorite."
As he and Touko get into a heated debate over whether pecha berries or yachi berries are better – they're both wrong, aguav berries are perfection – the rest of us scramble for whatever berries are left. We all know how Touko and Chili get when they eat out of anger.
TOUKO'S P.O.V.
I can't believe it. We're all in town, we've just walked past a bunch of patrolling Team Plasma Grunts, and they never even so much as glanced at us. Well, that, and the fact that I'm now a sitrus berry-colored blonde with messy blue streaks in my hair. I have no idea how in the world Skyla's hair looks like she got it done at a salon and I kind of have to admit I'm a little jealous.
But the point is, we're in town.
"We should split up," says Shauntal, pushing her sunglasses up to the top of her head. Because her eyes are purple, and therefore way too easily recognizable, she thought it would be best to cover them up subtly. "Chili can get his food, Iris can go fool around, the rest of us can do whatever the hell they want ..."
I follow her gaze towards a Game Corner. I would never have guessed cool, calm and collected Shauntal would like something as vulgar as gambling. But who am I to judge? I love it too.
"No," Skyla says firmly. "Don't you remember what happened the last time we split up, Shauntal? We lost Caitlin and the two of us were separated for years."
"How about Touya and I go with Iris to have some fun," I suggest, "since we're all around the same age. Skyla, you and Shauntal can shop for food with Chili. We'll all meet back here in two hours, right in front of this giant Plasma TV."
"Sounds good," says Skyla, who seems happy to not have to go off on her own.
"Yay yay yay yay yay, let's go!" cries Iris, reminding me of Bianca on a sugar rush. With a pang, I miss my best friend – or at least the friend she used to be before she let Team Plasma brainwash her.
Touya and I exchange glances, it looks like he's reminded of Bianca too. "Better not keep her waiting," he says with a grin, gesturing to Iris. I nod in agreement and we chase after her, since she's already tearing down the sidewalk.
Two hours later, Touya and I are toting giant shopping bags full of candy and stuffed Pokemon – it looks like Iris was seriously deprived of her childhood. We've also been on the town carousal ten to twelve times. Thankfully, it's time for us to meet back up with Shauntal, Skyla and Chili.
The three of them are already waiting for us, all loaded with bags stuffed with food, courtesy of the cash I won at the roulette table in a Game Corner.
"Good shopping?" I ask Chili.
He nods ecstatically. Before he can actually say anything, the Plasma TV flickers and gets all staticky, and then finally turns on.
It's the face of Ghetsis. A shiver runs down my spine as I remember seeing this face on my TV when I was four years old, and then having my parents forcefully taken away. I instantly grip onto the closest hand to me – it's Touya's.
"Good afternoon, my loyal subjects," Ghetsis says politely. "I am pleased to announce that this long-awaited day has arrived. Today is the coronation of our Prince N – the day he finally becomes King and takes over Team Plasma. All of you, sit down and watch, I command you. And now, let the coronation begin."
The screen changes to a view through a camera, where a boy with long, curly, light green hair – he's me and Touya's age, practically! - is sitting on a finely decorated throne. Below this live feed is a little line that reads TEAM PLASMA PRINCE N'S CORONATION. There's something about this N that I can't stop looking at.
"Damn, he's hot," I think, and then blush when I realize I've said it out loud. I shake my head a little as if that will get rid of the thought, and pretend to be thoroughly engaged in the coronation.
TOUYA'S P.O.V.
Here we all are, watching some stupid, most likely lazy and good-for-nothing prince get crowned a king, but I can honestly say that I'm not paying all that much attention to it. After all, there are more important things on my mind.
Like the fact that Touko White is gripping onto my hand.
Sure, it's incredibly tight and more like she's totally freaked out by something rather than a loving gesture that means she's incredibly in love with me and wants to make out, but if I ignore the pain, then it feels like we're holding hands.
Of course, that wonderful fantasy ends when I hear Touko say, "Damn, he's hot," and realize she's talking about this Prince N, not me.
I stand there rigidly, glaring at this 'N' on the screen, even though he can't see me or feel the stare or know how much I hate him right now. But since he doesn't know who I am and probably doesn't care, it's not like it matters.
What's so great about him, anyway? He has freaking green hair. That's not normal! (So what if Iris and Shauntal have shades of purple hair? It looks good on them.) Plus, it's not even a manly green, more like a faded dead-grass color. Plus, it's just so long, like the length of hair Touko has. Who wants to date a guy whose hair is as long as yours? Personally, that's just creepy.
And his name! What, does he think he sounds cool and mysterious just because his name is only one letter? 'N' just sounds really stupid on its own. He should've picked a much cooler letter for the one initial – 'Z' maybe or 'T'. Those are some letters with real swag.
My anger deflates though, when some Plasma Grunt places a ridiculously bejeweled crown on N's green-haired head. He's a prince, and he's filthy rich. How in the world can I compete with that? He's the kind of guy girls dream of coming to sweep them off their feet, and even if Touko is the leader of the rebellion, she probably still has those kinds of girly dreams.
I don't have a chance with her.
"Touya," someone says, waving their hand in front of my face. It takes me a second to register that it's Iris. "Touya, the broadcast's over."
"I knew that," I lie, but it's such an unimportant one that nobody challenges it. As an awkward silence ensues, I realize that Touko has let go of my hand, which only makes things worse.
"Let's go home," says Chili. "I have the perfect idea of what to make for dinner."
"Yeah," I echo, "let's go home." I want to either take a long nap and forget about this N guy who has obviously stolen Touko's heart, or at least come up with a hundred ways to make her love me instead of him.
Shauntal and Touko walk on ahead, leading the way back to our makeshift 'home'. Skyla, however, walks side-by-side with me.
"Don't worry," she says with a brilliant smile, "I bet you Touko didn't mean anything by what she said about N. And anyway, she'd never date him because they're on opposite sides. How could the leader of the rebellion date the king of Team Plasma? You've still got the best chance with her."
I smile back at Skyla. She's right. I do have a much better chance than N – who hasn't even met Touko, anyway – but I need to make a move before some either guy comes into the picture. Like if Touko starts falling for Chili or something.