"If the worst comes to worst, I do not give you permission to eat me."

"Well right now, you have the right to remain silent!"

Protector of Silence

Chapter Thirty-Six - Faith Fallen

"...Well...this is a mess."

'...Keith. Shut up.'

Kellyn shifted the best he could, but he couldn't do so much as move his legs along what he assumed was the floor. His back was pressed against Keith's, his wrists bound to the ginger's and some sort of blindfold across his eyes. According to Keith, he could at least see the wall in front of him, so Kellyn assumed their captors had only assumed he was the dangerous one and needed to be blindfolded.

"What d'ya think they locked us in here for?"

Kellyn shrugged. Or at least, did something that resembled shrugging whilst tied up.

"...Hey Kel...you don't think they locked us in here so we would kill each other, do ya?"

Kellyn bashed the back of his head backwards into the back of Keith's. Now say that five times quickly.

"Ow!" Keith whined "What was that for?!"

With no way to reply, Kellyn...didn't.

"...Just to let you know, if the worst comes to worst, I do not give you permission to eat me."

Kellyn bashed the back of his head into the back of Keith's again.

"Ow! Seriously, stop doing that!"

Kellyn heaved a great if not high-pitched sigh and let his head hang, closing his eyes since there wasn't really any point in keeping them open if he couldn't see. He just felt so hurt - physically and emotionally.

"...Kel...you're not crying, are you?"

Kellyn leant his head back against Keith and shook it to say no.

"Oh. Well, it's just, you were crying in your sleep before, so I was just checking in case..." Keith started, but then stopped and changed what he was going to say next. "Kel, this isn't your fault, you know. None of us blame you. Luna escaped. She'll find us, and then we'll find Kate and Sparks and we can all go back home, okay?"

'I'm such an idiot' Kellyn bowed his head, not really listening to his comrade 'Why did I even bother? Every time I make friends with someone, they either get hurt or they hurt me.'

"Hey!" Keith snapped, forcing Kellyn out of his little 'beating himself up' session. "This isn't your fault! It's all Starlight!" He lowered his voice to a dangerous level, practically growling: "It's all Starlight."

Kellyn tried to nod, but he was physically and mentally wasted and couldn't even find the strength to raise his head. The tears came now, he wouldn't deny it any longer.

'He was our friend! How could he betray us?! Why?!'

Kellyn hadn't known what had hit him, in every sense of the phrase. He'd just been following right behind Starlight and Shadow with Sparks at his side and everyone else somewhere behind them. They must've seemed an odd group: three kids, a shiny Espeon, an Umbreon and a Luxray - but that wasn't Kellyn's biggest worry. They'd already left the school grounds, left the school island, strayed away from the main road and had been walking through woodland for some time. His cloak (which he'd grabbed before they had left) had snagged on several twigs and branches and had almost torn several times, and he had several cuts to his skin and a twisted ankle.

He had been limping after Starlight, one arm around Sparks' neck for support, when they reached a clearing. And that was when Starlight had done something extraordinary.

"Dude, are you walking on air?!" Keith went bug-eyed. It looked like Starlight and Shadow were walking up an invisible ramp. Kellyn cautiously put out his foot and heard metal creaking as the sole of his boot made contact with something that went up diagonally. Very much like a ramp.

"Come on! Let's try it out!" Luna cheered, whizzing past him to race up the invisible ramp. With a deep breath of courage, Kellyn let go of Sparks and slowly hobbled up the ramp - it was quite hard to do considering the slope of the ramp and the fact he was limping. After a few metres, he reached the top of the ramp where the metal levelled off quite abruptly.

That was when everything went so very wrong.

Before he could turn around and check on Kate and Keith, something hard smashed into the left side of the back of his skull. The force of the blow flung Kellyn off of his feet and made him crash down to the metal floor below. Keith and Kate yelled his name and the sound of footsteps on metal echoed everywhere - far too many footsteps for just Kate and Keith to be making. Luna shrieked with outrage and Sparks began roaring about something. But Kellyn blocked this all out when he heard what was said next.

At first, the whole world was a haze of white and black. Then his sight began to return. He was lying on the floor on his side, angled to face down the ramp they'd come up. It was no longer invisible, but now a dark machinery-grey and screaming with the words 'entrance to your horrible doom!'. But it was what was at the bottom of that ramp that shocked Kellyn the most.

"Well, it's good to see you didn't back out on our deal."

Standing there, up to her ankles in long grass, was Hunter J.

"I'm not proud of what I'm done. Now it's your turn."

And standing opposite her, his head hung so his silver-hair hid his face, was Starlight. The boy Kellyn had come to see as his best friend - completely untouched by any of Hunter J forces. Betraying them. Betraying the ones that had taken him in and cared for him. Betraying his friends...his family.

"My turn? Ohhhh, you mean her?" J snorted dismissively "I will meet you in Mossdeep City. Then I'll get around to it."

"Hey!" Starlight's head snapped up in anger "That wasn't part of the deal! You said you'd let her go!"

"I never said here and now" J pointed out, her words becoming harder to workout as Kellyn's hearing started to go again. "I've seen you can keep your word, now I'm expecting you to wait for me to keep mine."

With one last sigh, Starlight hung his head again and ground out: "Fine."

Then, Kellyn let the hurt and despair in his heart overrule him. The world faded back into that haze of black and white, and he knew no more.

Keith clasped his hand rather awkwardly, as their wrists were bound together.

"Everything gonna be okay, alright?" he tried to reassure him. The reassurance was just hollow though. According to Keith's also-date-telling glow-in-the-dark watch, they'd been locked in this place for over a day-and-a-half. No rescue was coming - that was clear. "The darkest hour is just before the dawn. Lind always used to say that. I always trusted my brother, and I'm gonna trust him now too. Got it?"

Kellyn nodded. Empty promises were the best he could hope for right now.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE YOU PUNKS!"

Several grunts outside in the corridor winced as Kate Hitomi launched another kick at the mechanical door. The door already had several obvious dents from the outside as, besides a three hour nap, Kate had spent the last day-and-a-half battering the poor innocent door with her feet, fists and capture disk. Needless to say the quartet of grunts guarding her were walking on eggshells, trying not to do something that could result in bodily harm for them.

"We should've put her with the boys" the leader of this little group decided, folding his arms "They hopefully would've kept her occupied."

"LET ME OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!"

"Are you kidding me?" his second-in-command stared at him "She would've killed them and used their heads and bones as weapons against us when she escaped - which she would've!"

"I don't get it. She was perfectly docile before we threw her in here" one of the other grunts, a big muscular guy, scratched his head "But the second we locked the door, she totally lost it."

"WHEN I GET OUT I'M GONNA SHISH KEBAB YOU ALL!"

"I don't doubt you will" the second-in-command murmured.

"I don't even see why we're keeping her around" the fourth grunt - a young, inexperienced, weedy kinda guy - added his two cents.

"Apparently she's a valuable asset" the leader explained "But whoever wants her is obviously insane, suicidal, desperate or Mike."

"Hey!" grunt #3, obviously 'Mike', protested.

"YOU CAN'T DO THIS! I HAVE RIGHTS!"

"Well right now, you have the right to remain silent!" the fourth grunt fired back, smirking with pride at his comeback.

Another dent in the door. This one looked to be from a capture disk again.

"I think you just made her mad" 'Mike' told his jeering companion.

"Squadron!" a nameless unimportant grunt peered his head around the corner of the corridor "The Sir needs to see you!"

"All of us?!" the leader complained, before sighing "Fine. Yuan," he turned to the fourth grunt "guard the door."

"M-Me?!" 'Yuan' pointed at himself, openly shaking with terror "Guard h-h-her?! By myself?!"

"Relax, she isn't going anywhere" Mike snorted "That's a reinforced steel door with five different locks controlled by three different control panels with a different combination on each. You can open it from the outside, but I highly doubt one twelve-year-old's gonna get through all of that."

Sure enough, as if Kate had heard all of that, she had stopped abusing the door.

"See, pie" Mike grunted "Stay here, we'll be back when the meeting's over."

So the other grunts left, leaving poor little Yuan all by his lonesome. The grunt cautiously backed up against the door, standing as straight as possible and trying to look like a real guard. For about five minutes, all was well. But then, all good things have to come to an end. Including for Yuan.

"Excuse me? Mister?"

Yuan's thoughts went for a terrified whirl as Kate spoke, but he put on his best poker face as he responded: "Yes?"

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Kate asked.

"It's my duty to guard this door and that's what I'm going to do" Yuan quickly told her "And so far I have been doing that to the level of—"

"Oh don't flatter yourself!" Kate rolled her eyes, cutting him off "I have a request!"

"What" Yuan's voice was so flat, it would simply be a crime to put a question mark there.

"I'm thirsty" Kate told him "Do you have any water?"

"Oh! Sure!" Yuan relaxed and turned to face the door. Picking up the water bottle they had been supposed to give her some time ago (although they'd all been to afraid to do it at the time), he punched in the codes for the door and it slid open. Yuan greeted her with a friendly smile...

...only to be met with a not-so-friendly fist to the face.

After a day-and-a-half of solitude and frustration, Kate was not in the mood for playing nice.

"Finally" she muttered, dragging Yuan inside the space she'd been enclosed without in case anyone came down the corridor and saw him. She took the water bottle from his hand, wrenched off the lid and drank as much as she could in five gulps. She then wiped her mouth and prepared to escape for real.

'I've gotta find the boys, and they'll probably be in a room like this one. So it'll probably be somewhere on this corridor.'

Peering up and down the long greyish corridor, she stuck close to the wall, checking out all the doors she passed to see which one had the highest security. But it appeared J had a lot of grunts because every room she passed seem to be a dormitory.

'No fair, they get their one dorms whilst we have to share with classmates!' Kate couldn't help but pout.

She didn't have a lot of luck with any doors. Until she reached the last door on the corridor. It looked a lot like hers, but with only one keypad lock that seemed to require a longer code.

'This must be it!' she realised, her eyes gleaming with hope. She smirked down at the keypad - she'd always been good at mechanics at school. Whipping out a fold-away screwdriver she'd picked from the room she'd been sealed in before, she unscrewed the lid off of the keypad, exposing the wires underneath. There appeared to be only two wires, one red and one green, both connected with a magnet contraption that could easily be pulled apart.

"Piece of cake" Kate muttered to herself with a confident smile. She pulled apart the two magnets on each wire before connecting one end of the green wire to the other end of the red wire, making an X shape with them as the magnets held them in place. Immediatly the door slid open.

'Alright!' she silently cheered to herself 'Take that Hunter J!'

Kate quickly realised though that this room did not have Kellyn and Keith in it.

'Are these all...Pokémon?'

The room was lined with statues, Pokémon frozen in time and trapped within a golden shell. A glass dome surrounded each one of them, like they were just pretty objects on display. As she walked down the aisle cleared in the middle, Kate had to bite back tears at some of the shocked, horrified or pleading looks on the prisoners' faces. If Sparks had been captured by Hunter J, he would've gone through this exactly.

This had to be the ultimate torture.

'But if Sparks is free now, then surely that means we can recover them' Kate tried to keep her hopes up 'And that's what we'll do! We'll save all of them! They'll all be free to go back home!'

She frowned now. At the end of the room was a bigger glass dome - big enough to fit Kate inside of it. And there was statue inside it - some sort of bipedal prisoner. Whatever it was, it certainly had arms and legs.

'A Machoke or a Sudowoodo maybe?' she guessed, speeding up her walking pace in anticipation.

But the truth was further from that than she could've ever imagined.

Kate gasped, her throat going dry, and suddenly so much made sense. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, something about the whole story had never made sense - and now she knew the answer.

"Impossible..."