Finally, here's a look at Solana and Alyssa and how they have been doing. I'm starting to wrap everything up as far as writing the chapters and everything's going good. Here's the next chapter!

Alyssa

I had honestly never been more scared in my life. I was blind-folded and, having previously been knocked out after I delivered the message to my sister, had no idea where I was. I didn't know if it had been hours, days, weeks, or maybe even just the span of a few minutes. All I did know was that I had to pee really badly, my bound hands hurt like mess, and that I felt hotter than a Moltres.

I felt something peck my head. I sat up tentatively. "Chatot?" I whispered. It chattered in reply and I felt a tiny bit of warmth fill me up. At least I had my trusty partner Pokemon. Well, maybe not all that trusty, but at least he kept me company.

"She awake," I heard a gruff voice and my blindfold was taken off. I blinked several times, trying to adjust to my surroundings. I was in what looked like a volcano. Must be Boyleland. It must have been a while, if we had gotten all the way from Wintown to Boyleland. They were on opposite sides of the Pokemon world, pretty much. And talk about two sides of the spectrum. I had grown accustomed to Wintown's cold.

I felt a first thrill when I looked around and didn't see my sister. It was her they wanted. If she wasn't here, maybe things weren't as bad as I thought. Maybe it was just me they had managed to kidnap. I was still mad at myself about that too. I should've known better than to go wandering any further than my meadow. I thought I had heard a hurt Pokemon, so I had followed the noise and ended up in a load of trouble.

That was when I saw Solana's slumped form against a nearby rock and I froze. Arceus! They did get somebody. They got Solana, who had the Vatonage styler anyway. I had been there when my sister gave it to her. I tried to scoot over to her, but whoever had taken off my blindfold blocked me with their thick leg.

"Don't think so," he huffed. "You stay here." I frowned. Who the heck was so giant and had such bad grammar? I looked up to see the largest and stupidest member of the Sinis Trio, Heath, glaring at me. I knew about Heath. He had been the one who captured Keith and used him as bait so my sister would get him the Yellow Gem.

I glared back at him. "How long has it been since you guys kidnapped me?"

Heath just stared at me stoically. I gave up, looking back over at Solana. "Solana," I hissed. Please let her be okay. I didn't like the way she was slumped against the rock. And where was Plusle? "Solana, wake up!"

She slowly came to, moaning. "What happened?"

"I don't know," I replied, still whispering. "I've been knocked out for the past however long it's been."

She opened her eyes slowly, not moving her head. "Ow. Rocks hurt."

"No kidding."

"Where's Plusle?" She said suddenly, her eyes looking around a bit frantically. "I mean, he was right with me and now…" She trailed off, seeing who was coming. "Do I know that person?" I flicked a glance at where she was looking, frowning deeply.

It was the big, bad Mightyena of the Sinis Trio, Ice, flanked by his pink-haired partner in crime, Lavana. Great. Things just got a whole lot worse. Heath was an idiot. Besides his physical strength, he had no real valuable assets. Even Lavana was a big wimp, from what I'd heard from my sister. However, Ice was the one you had to look out for. Even Isaac had told me about him a few times. Ice was apparently the one who actually had a brain inside that granite lump of a head of his. He was the one who scared me.

"Hey," Ice flashed a cold grin at us both, "Looks like my two little Ranger captives are awake."

"You won't get away with this," I answered hotly, "I bet you my sister and half the Ranger Union are on our tail right now."

"It's been two days since we kidnapped both of you," Ice responded smugly, "And I haven't seen any sign of your stupid Ranger friends. No, you little noobs are here to stay."

"I swear, call me little one more time," Solana muttered under her breath, still holding her head gingerly.

"Solana," Ice turned his attention to her, smiling a bit too pleasantly for my liking, "You and I are going to have a little chat. Why don't you come with me?"

Solana didn't move. Ice shook his head.

"I was hoping we could do this the easy way," he said, looking disappointed, "but it seems that you Rangers always have to be difficult." He nodded to the two Dim Sun cronies, who made a move toward Solana. She shook her head vehemently, not saying anything. Then she stood up, glaring at Ice.

"I can walk fine, thank you," she said icily. Ice shrugged helplessly, grinning.

"Lavana, stay here," he ordered, but Lavana was applying her next layer of make-up and seemed to ignore him anyway.

Solana followed after him and I looked on helplessly. What was Ice going to do with her?

Solana

I followed Ice back to an isolated cavern, two Dim Sun goons trailing behind us. They stationed themselves outside the cavern while Ice and I both went in. So I get a secret talk with the boss. Gee, I feel so honored. I narrowed my eyes at his back. I wasn't afraid of nobody with hair as blue as his. I mean, Spenser had blue hair, but his was more of a blueish- green.

That thought was a small punch to the gut. Arceus, I hope he wasn't beating himself up too much about me getting kidnapped. I mean, in his strange universe, he would find some way to blame himself and get pissed off about it and get all protective. He did that for all his Rangers. I'm sure. Yeah, just like he holds hands with all his Rangers, I reminded myself sourly.

But I quickly focused myself on the task at hand. My eyes scanned the cavern, looking for anything I could out to good use in an escape. I would never leave Alyssa or Plusle behind, but I if I could find a way to get free and get them out too, it could be a possibility. Ice grinned at me as my eyes darted about the cavern.

"Don't worry, sweetheart, we've baby-proofed the area. You aren't going to find anything useful."

I shot him a look of pure venom. Or at least I hoped it was. I couldn't tell because he didn't really seem to be phased by anything. He started speaking and I listened, even though I already knew I wasn't going to like a single thing that came out of his mouth. "So, my little Ranger noob, I have a proposition for you. You have some skills that I need and, if you choose to cooperate, you can even profit from lending these skills to me."

"And would I lose all morality in the process?" I asked critically.

"Let's not think of it in terms of black and white," Ice answered hesitantly.

"Of course," I shrugged, seeing the hopelessness of my current situation, "And once I say no, you threaten to hurt Alyssa or Plusle, who you probably have hidden somewhere, and you keep hurting them until I given in. It's not like this is something new. Villains all over the world have done this. You need to think up of a more original plan, honestly." But for all my brave words, I couldn't hide the truth. I was scared out of my mind. They wanted something from me and they would do anything to get it. Everyone and anyone I had ever cared about was at risk and I hated it.

"Well, if the hostages I have now are insufficient, I can always find someone else," Ice suggested innocently. "Maybe I could find that friend you hang out with so often. Lunick? Is that his name? Or maybe I could just nudge fate a bit. Accidents happen, you know? It would be a shame if something bad happened to him or any of the other Ringtown Rangers." He was so underhanded, so slimy, and I hated him so much right now. I said nothing for a moment, weighing what options I had. Which were pretty much none. He could be bluffing. Maybe there could be no way that he had that much reach. Maybe he was pinned down right now and just needed to convince me that I had no choice in the matter and had to help them. Maybe... I shook my head. All these "maybes" were making my head spin.

"If you need a little convincing as to the reality of my threats, I have a little something for you," he went into the small drawstring bag that he had carried in with him and took out a small book, one that I knew so well from my late nights with Spenser.

"No way," I breathed. It was my journal. I had left it in Ringtown when I left for Wintown, thinking nothing of it since I was only going to be gone for a week or two (to my knowledge). How had they even known about it?

"If you think we don't have the power to hurt those you care about, think again," Ice added, stating the obvious. "We got this right from the Ringtown Base inside the draw of the table next to the green couch. Pretty good, huh?" He grinned, gloating as I fumed. "I'm only halfway through, but it's a good read. It's a nice inside look at the way each of the Rangers' work. Pretty informative."

Arceus, I despised this guy. That journal was a compilation of my five years of work with the Rangers. Almost as soon as I had started, I could feel that I was with this job until I was too old or it killed me. When I wrote those letters to Spenser, all that time ago before I knew him, there was something cleansing about it. I had started this job with writing and I was going to continue it with writing. I had to leave something behind. It was my private thoughts and it killed me for him to be reading them. I grit my teeth, knowing that the decision I had to make wasn't going to be easy.

"I'll do what you want," I admitted with difficulty, seeing no other solution. I would think of something in the meantime. There would be an opportunity before this all came to a head and I would grab it as soon as I got it. The first step was to try to get Alyssa out of here. Then I could move from there. As long as we stayed together, I could keep an eye on her, just like I had promised Kate. Yeah, I was doing a great job of that so far, by the way. When I promised Kate I'd watch over her, I didn't think we'd ever get ourselves into a situation like this.

"Good," Ice said, looking pleased. Okay, before I behaved, I just had to do one little thing. Just one, little rebellious act.

"Ahhh!" Ice yelped. There was an unpleasant sounding crunch as my fist connected with his nose. I grinned. Okay, so I had never been a violent person. Rangers were supposed to be peaceful people anyway. We calm and capture Pokemon instead of fighting them. But that punch felt good. Pretty damn good.

He glared at me through a mess of blood. "Okay, missy, you just got yourself in a load of trouble."

I just met his gaze solidly.

"The only reason you're even alive right now is because we need you," he snarled at me, shoving me toward the opening that led back to the rest of the group, "Because if we didn't, we'd be finding you a nice bed at the bottom of a lake somewhere."

I felt a small chill travel down my spine at his threat, but tried not to show any outward reaction. As soon as they were done with me, Ice definitely had no intention of keeping me around. I'll file that observation away for later. I allowed myself to be corralled back to the main group, showing little emotion on my face. "What the heck happened to you?" Lavana asked, having moved on to filing her nails.

Ice sent her a look of livid anger. "She happened, that's what," I could see he was resisting the urge to kick me.

"Cleared out your sinuses, huh?" Alyssa asked cheerfully, now standing. I shot daggers at her, willing her to swallow the words. She did not need to be attracting attention to herself. I was trying to get her through this in one piece and if she kept making comments like that, it was never going to happen. However, they were already out of her mouth and Ice turned to glare at her. All it took was a quick swing to send her reeling back. Only a second later, she jumped right back up, angrier than I had ever seen her.

"Yeah, sure, hit the little girl," she spat, a cut now prominent on her lip. Heath held her back with his pinky finger and Ice rolled his eyes, dismissing her.

"Heath, I want you to take Solana's disgusting little rat Pokemon back to base," Ice ordered briskly. "Lavana, you take that one," he pointed a dismissive finger at Alyssa, frowning, "and hole up somewhere. As for Solana and I, we're going to take a little trip." He grinned at me and I stared defiantly back, but felt a little spot of despair growing. My "stick with Alyssa" plan was just torn apart. I couldn't think of anything that would change Ice's mind in the slightest. But I had to try something. I couldn't just let them take Alyssa and Plusle away. I couldn't trust Ice to keep them alive.

Ice went back to conferring with Lavana and I was about to try and make a break for it to get Alyssa free when I caught the eyes of one of the Dim Sun goons that had followed Ice and I during our little chat. There was something… familiar almost about him. He shook his head a tiny bit, as if he knew what I was planning on doing. I couldn't tear my eyes off him. Who was he? Obviously someone on our side if he was trying not to attract attention to himself.

Ice's voice jarred me back to attention and I quickly looked away from the mysterious Dim Sun member. "Let's get moving," he ordered, separating Alyssa and I. I let him, trusting whoever was helping us out.

"Don't be stupid, Alyssa," I warned her and she shot me a look, anger still evident in her eyes. Arceus, she was going to do something dumb and get herself in trouble.

I flashed a look back over to the mysterious Dim Sun member. He nodded a bit again, signaling me that I was doing the right thing. I frowned to myself. I didn't like this, but this guy seemed to be on our side. I had to trust him. He must be from the Ranger Union. Maybe one of the lesser-known Top Rangers. Plus, he had to have connections if he had gotten in with Dim Sun. My eyes widened. Connections. Who was it that Spenser had said had good connections? He shepherded me over to Ice, meeting my eyes. I looked at him more closely and recognized who it was.

He was right in front of me. "Jackie?" I mouthed at him, barely making any noise. He grinned and his expression was unmistakeable. I gaped, but shut my mouth quickly before anyone could notice. Yeah, I could trust him all right.