"Don't you dare go all sappy on me."

"They're far too complicated for someone who still thinks one plus one is eleven."

Protector of Silence

Chapter Thirty-Eight - The sun has risen

Solana took a deep breath that turned into a gasp as she raised her arm out in front of her. After being trapped in the darkness for so long, it felt so easy to move her limbs that she almost felt lightheaded - like one feels when they've been a swimming pool too long.

'Free...' the thought was so foreign to her, it boggled her mind for a second. 'I...I don't have to fight anymore.' The darkness wasn't surrounding her anymore, pulling at her limbs and choking her as it dragged her down into it's depths. It was blasted back into a circle several metres away from her whilst she stood upon a small beach was what seemed like pale-grey pebbles - all perfectly elliptical - whilst dark waves lapped gently upon the shore.

Her voice was cracked and sore from all the pleading and screaming she'd been doing for so long, but as she wrapped her arms around herself, she choked out one word:

"Lunick?"

"I'm right here." Something gripped her upper arm. With a squeak of alarm, Solana spun around, her eyes wide and her jaw almost dropped. But tears welled in her eyes as she saw the one person she had hoped but doubted she would ever see again.

"Lunick!" She wanted to wrap her arms around him and give him the biggest hug she could, but he beat her to it. He seemed stronger than before - or maybe she was just more fragile - because he held her gently as if she would break if he held her too hard. He seemed to be taller too - she couldn't quite rest her forehead on his shoulder like he was with her now; not that she'd tried that since they were, like, twelve.

"Solana." The call was practically a whisper - so quiet the lapping of waves on the pebbles almost disguised it.

Solana frowned as she felt a wet spot on her shoulder. Was he–? "Lunick, why are you crying?"

"I-I'm sorry" He almost whimpered as he lifted his face from her shoulder. His eyes were glassy and wet. "I'm sorry it took me so long to find you. I searched everywhere for you, I really did! But I didn't imagine..." He shook his head, his eyes falling closed with what seemed like disappointment for a second. He raised a hand and placed it on her cheek, making her flush slightly. "You've been fighting for so long. You're so strong - but it should never have been your battle to fight. I dragged you into this Solana, and I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am for that. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and all I've ever seemed to have done is cause trouble for you; it seems to happen to everyone I care about. Maybe I'm cursed, it wouldn't surprise me. I don't expect you to forgive me, but I do–" He was cut off as Solana laid a hand over his mouth, preventing him from saying anything else.

"Lunick, don't you dare go all sappy on me" she offered him a small smile "I chose to go with you - you didn't make that decision for me; and I wouldn't ever even consider changing my mind. You and Kellyn mean so much to me - you're the family I never had. And I could bare the struggle for my life, knowing you'd find me some day."

Lunick now looked rather sheepish, the hand on her cheeks reloctating to the back of his head. She was almost disappointed by the action. "Well, actually, I only found you thanks to Owari - don't ask who he is - and even then it required a lot of pressuring. And I only found you here because he's so nearby."

"Huh?" Solana was confused, not understanding what Lunick was saying "What do you mean? Who's he?"

Lunick took a deep breath, like he was preparing for a long speech, and gripped her arm with his other hand. "He's the one who's going to help you."

"What?" Solana was now even more confused, and starting to get a little scared "What do you mean? Isn't that what you came to do? Like you promised - 'I'd come to help you even if I wasn't told to', right?"

"No" Lunick shook his head "Not this time." He took several steps back, putting as much distance between him and her as possible. "Because I'm not supposed to be the one to..."

He trailed off, spinning around so she couldn't see his face. Then, the most curious thing started to happen. His form started to flicker, so he seemed to be there one second and someone else in that same spot the next.

"Lunick?" Solana was now starting to tremble in fright now "What's going on?! What are you doing?!"

"Showing you" Lunick replied, but his voice seemed to be backed up by someone else's - a young boy's. "This is him. This is the one who'll save you, believe in him - he's more special than you think."

Lunick turned around, but his form had finally changed completely. He was now about two heads shorter, with brown hair cut into a Buizel style and mint-green laced in with the blue of his eyes. His ranger uniform had faded away into a long green cloak, a green jumper, fingerless gloves and jeans that tucked into a pair of boots as brown as his hair. Solana had never seen this kid before in her life.

But she didn't have much time to examine him, because the darkness swept back over and everything faded into black.

"It's time to go Solana. Be free. You may not recognise me, but we will meet again. I promise."

Kate openly gaped as the dome before her shimmered with white light, stopping her from seeing the statue inside it. She'd just flipped a switch in the base of the dome - she didn't mean for this to happen!

'Please don't explode' she prayed 'Please please please please don't explode!'

Thankfully it didn't explode. The whiteness simply shattered into the tiniest of particles, the dome shattering with it. As the light cleared, Kate could see the golden statue was no longer golden, but coloured in the correct tones of pink, red, grey and blue.

Then Kate swore she nearly died of shock, as the statue moved! But not only did it move, it stepped down from the platform it has been standing on onto the floor. It blinked twice, then apparently focused on her and put on a smile.

"Hello there, who are you?"

She was staring at a fifteen-year-old Solana Hinata.

Kate had absolutely no clue what to do. Her mouth just hung open, her eyes wide and her muscles tense. She probably looked like a statue now.

"Excuse me?" Solana's smile faded into confusion ever so slightly. "Are you quite well?" She took a step forward and, for reasons Kate would later say she couldn't quite identify, the ginger shied away.

"Oh, are you shy?" Solana asked, the smile still on her face. She was apparently trying to be as friendly as possible towards this strange girl. "You understand me, right?" Somehow, Kate found the ability to nod. Solana visibly relaxed - not that she could be more relaxed. "Oh, good! My name's Solana, what's yours?"

"K-Kate" the ginger stuttered out, still too shell-shocked to fully understand what was happening. 'How is this possible?! HOW?!'

"Kate! What a pretty name!" Solana smiled, clapping her hands together "I know a girl called Kate - well, Katherine really, we just call her Kate. She's just a baby actually." Her red eyes went distant for a moment. "Maybe Lunick and I will go see her again some day."

If Kate wasn't stunned before, she was now. Really stunned.

"Well, I suppose I better find this boy Lunick was so certain I'd meet" Solana decided, raising her chin.

She walked past Kate in the direction of the door, but then she turned around and looked at the frozen ginger who was staring at her as if she was an alien disembarking from a flying saucer.

"Well?" Solana giggled ever-so-slightly. It was a carefree giggle. "Are you coming?"

"Er...um...ah..." Kate fumbled for any words at all "...er...uh-huh..."

Forcing her feet to move, she stumbled after the impossibly-young blunette. One following the other, they left the room of prisons.

Their destination?

Hope.

Freedom.

"LIGHT! LIIIIIIIIGHT!"

A flame popped into life in the centre of the dormitory.

'Ah! Keith no!' Kellyn sprinted forwards and snatched the match out Keith's hands. He tried to blow it out, but it was strangely harder than the movies made it out to be. He finally just plunked the match in a half-full cup of what appeared to be lemonade. Which grunt had left a cup of lemonade lying around his dorm and his door unlocked?

Do you want to burn this thing to the ground with us in it?!

"Humph!" Keith folded his arms, sulking. "It was a dark and I was cold! It was the first thing I thought of!" Then his 'sulking' face turned into a frown. "You know, it's kind weird. Have you ever noticed how it take one careless match to start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?"

Kellyn grabbed a scrap of paper off of the grunt's desk - he'd run out of room on the last scrap.

How hard were you hit over the head?! What is with your randomness today?!

Keith folded his arms and pouted. "Well Kel I'm going to take offence to that! I'm just, like,soexcited cos we're off on a huge adventure and we've just escaped a bad-guy prison and that's, like, so AWESOME and I'm really hyper and really need to rant now and—!" Here he broke off into a squeal of joy. Kellyn quickly covered the moron's mouth. The last thing they needed was to be discovered.

"Are you two quite finished?" Spark inquired, already out the door.

'Yeah, we're coming' Kellyn thought with a sigh, following the Luxray out.

Keith immediately jogged after them, as his little game of 'Let's Annoy Kellyn Until He Cracks' wouldn't work without a certain exasperated midget.

So, what's the plan?

"The plan?" Keith blinked "We have a plan?" At Kellyn's furious glare, Keith suddenly found he could remember. "Oh yeah! That's plan!" He looked thoughtful...sort of. "So, Step One: escape that cell."

Kellyn nodded and motioned for Keith to go on.

Keith nervously rubbed the back of his head. "Well, to be honest, I never thought we'd get past Step One."

Kellyn facepalmed. 'Idiot!" He gave an internal sigh, removing his palm from his face. 'We need help.' His eyes darted towards the ceiling. 'Owari, are you listening right now? Because if you are, some help would really be appreciated right now.' There was no immediately obvious reply. Kellyn grit his teeth. 'Oh come on! The whole 'best friends from another life' thing totally doesn't work if you choose to ignore me now!'

"Penny for your thoughts?" Ugh, Keith.

They're far too complicated for someone who still thinks one plus one is eleven

Keith rolled his eyes. "How many times do I have to say: you only make that mistake twice?!" His eyes suddenly flashed open with panic as he realised what he'd just said "I mean once!"

Kellyn was about to facepalm again, but stopped himself as he heard...

'Footsteps!' He quickly grabbed Keith's sleeve and drug him around a corner out of sight, Sparks immediately following them. Several tense seconds later, two goons walked by and the footsteps started to die away.

'That was a close one' Kellyn gasped with relief.

"Kellyn! This way!" Sparks was looking up at something a little way along this new corridor they'd been hiding in. There seemed to be a metal ladder with a trapdoor at the bottom of a concrete slab above it.

"Another door" Sparks explained. Kellyn was wondering how Sparks could know this, but then remembered he was a Luxray with X-Ray vision. "There could be more Pokémon trapped behind there."

Keith however had a very different opinion on the matter.

"Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Another secret entrance!" He squealed with delight. In a flash, he was flying up the metal ladder that was thankfully cemented into the wall.

"Wow, Keith can climb like a Mankey" Sparks commented as Keith scrambled to the top of the ladder and hauled himself up onto the ledge. He turned a metal wheel and opened the door; or at least, that's what Kellyn could hear. Then Keith gave a yelp and he was sent flying off of the ledge. With great luck, he managed to cling to the ladder to stop his fall.

"Hey! What ya do that for?!" Keith shouted, scaling the ladder twice as fast now and disappearing throw the trap door within the same second.

'Yeah, and I think he just evolved into a Primeape' Kellyn sweat-dropped. Sparks grumbled. 'Sorry. Didn't catch that."

"Moron" Sparks clarified, looking at where Keith had disappeared. Kellyn nodded.

'Agreed.'

There came a yell and something heavy landed next to where Kellyn was standing with a thud. One of Hunter J's goons groaned as he slipped into unconsciousness.

"Okay! It's safe now!" Keith called from up on the ledge. Kellyn facepalmed with a groan.

'He's never gonna live this down, is he?' he groaned inwardly. Sparks was still staring up at the ledge.

"I'm more interested in how he's gonna get me up there."