Category: Pokémon

Rating: M

Couples: X

Warnings: AU, Disturbing Imagery,

Chapter: 3

Copyright: Characters & places © By Game Freak, Plot & OC´s © by me

Author's Note: Multi Chapter Interlude between Sword's Fate and its' upcoming Sequel. Can be read alone.

"Italics" is indicative of Telepathy.

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Upon arrival at the hospital, Olympia was taken to be treated for her broken arm. Diantha was forced to wait outside the room, sitting on one of the hard-plastic chairs in the waiting-area.

"Kathi?" She used the time to call her manager. "We need to cancel my time-intensive appointments for a while; something happened."

"I know." Kathi's voice was tight. "I was visiting Valerie for that new outfit for you, remember? I was there when her alarm went off. Speaking of which, we arrived at Olympia's gym. Where are you?"

"Anistar City Hospital." Diantha sighed. Joining the ambulance had been a knee-jerk reaction, but she had completely forgotten that the 'alarm' only send the location the button was pressed, not where the pager had gone afterwards. "Can you wait for the others to arrive at the Gym and then come over?"

"Alright." The female on the other side of the phone muttered. "I think it might take an hour until they're all here. Did you send for the Elites too?"

"I send an 'all'-alarm." The Champion muttered. "Trust me, it's warranted."

"Considering Olympia's Gym is on lock-down with police swarming all over and you went to the hospital, I can kinda see that." Kathi answered. "I'll call you again when we started moving to you."

Hanging up, Diantha very uncharacteristically let her head fall forward, leaning on her legs. It had been a mere week since that entire Team Flare mess and already something new popped up?

She started at that thought. Was this some kind of revenge action? Olympia's visions had been rather important in stopping all that – not to mention she had teleported everyone to Anistar City to stop the Giant Rock – so it would not be inconceivable that some remnant of Team Flare would want to make her pay for that.

Getting up from her seat, she limped over to the door through which the Anistar Gym Leader had been taken. She would have to arrange come kind of police-protection until that was ruled out.

She just hoped that Olympia would wake soon so they could really figure out what happened.

Diantha flinched a bit when her stomach started growling. With everything, she had completely forgotten eating something. Slumping a bit, she threw one last glance towards the door before starting to look for some kind of cafeteria – or barring that, just a snack machine.

An hour later found Kalos' strongest trainer eating a machine-bought sandwich with bad coffee since the cafeteria wouldn't open for another two hours when Kathi send her a message to ask where in the hospital she was.

One message later, she threw the remnants in a nearby garbage-bin and moved out into the hallway.

"Diantha!" Valerie was in the front. "What happened to Olympia!?"

"And to your leg." Kathi added, frowning at the bandage covering Diantha's knee.

"In short; someone attacked Olympia and beat her up." Kalos' Champion answered, leading the way into an unoccupied room for privacy. "Her place is a mess – exploded kitchen and bathroom among others – and I had to climb through a broken-down wall to reach her. That's where I hurt my knee, by the way." Taking a deep breath, she continued. "I could tell that her arm was broken and considering the fact that they are still treating her, probably a whole lot more is wrong as well."

She couldn't voice exactly what her mind had first flashed to when seeing Olympia on the floor of the Gym Leader's bedroom.

"Oh merciful Arceus…" Drasna whispered. "What about her Pokémon?"

"She didn't manage to reach them and it seems they were unable to tell what happened to her." Diantha sank down on an empty bed. "At least, they were nowhere to be seen – I sincerely doubt they'd leave her if they had left their Pokéballs – and I figure they'd have let me know by now if they had been stolen or something."

"But they are Psychic-types." Wulfric pointed out. "One of her Meowstic let Olympia know from half a city away that I had arrived at her Gym early for dinner once. How can they possibly miss their trainer being… being beaten up at most a few rooms away?"

"Beats me." The actress sighed for what felt like the millionth time that day. "I send out an all-alarm because we cannot be certain that Olympia was the last to be attacked."

"You think this might be some kind of revenge-action by remnants of Team Flare." Siebold realized. "Malva is hunting them down, but it is conceivable some of them managed to slip away for now."

"We cannot count on her finding them all before they get to their next target." Wikstrom darkly stated. "Still, that they would dare…"

"They're desperate, no doubt." Grant pointed out from where he was leaning against the wall. "Since the Giant Rock, Malva has been hunting them like a Sharpedo its' next prey. They've been driven into a corner."

"But you'd expect them to decide to flee, not hang around making themselves bigger targets." Viola countered. "Right now it's mostly Malva after them, but this is going to get at the very least the police on their ass as well."

"Uhm… excuse me?" One of the doctors opened the door slowly. "Is this a bad moment?"

"No, it's fine." Diantha walked up to him. "What news do you have about Olympia?"

"Bad news, all things considered." He held a clipboard. "Physically, she is mostly fine; bruises, a broken arm…"

"But?" Ramos demanded.

"She is completely unresponsive." The doctor shook his head lightly. "Whatever happened to her has caused her to fall into a deep coma - we are currently still struggling to find out exactly what caused it, I am afraid. It will be quite a while until she wakes."

"She's… comatose?" Korrina echoed in shock. "But…"

"Thank you." Diantha cut in. "Keep me informed of any changes and findings, if you would." After he had nodded and left she walked over to the window, looking outside. "Until further notice, all League-challengers are to be turned down, we are going to focus on finding out who is responsible as quickly as possible. Contact Malva and warn her of what happened."

"I'll go do that." Siebold turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

"What about us?" Viola gestured to herself and the other Gym Leaders. "Are we considered targets?"

"Until we know more, yes." The Champion turned to face the room again. "Have the police in your cities give you some police-protection – again, until further notice." They nodded in answer.

She was distracted by someone calling her. "Yes?" For a second, she hoped that it was the police with news, but Cynthia's voice greeted her. Oh right, she was supposed to call the Sinnoh Champion after the unveiling of the Sun Dial.

"Sorry if you called and I didn't answer." The black-clad female greeted her, however. "I have been in the hospital for like the past twelve hours."

"I completely forgot to call you, to be honest." The actress muttered. "Wait, you were in the hospital? What for?"

"Lucian was attacked." Cynthia darkly stated. "Like two rooms down from me, in fact. He's in a coma… why are you snarling in my ear?"

"Call the other Champions." The woman leaning against a hospital-window. "Conference-call in an hour. Get them out of bed, if need be."

"Diantha?" Valeria walked up to her. The rest of the people in the room had been unable to hear what Cynthia had been saying and were now quite confused.

"I need to get to the League for a video-call right away." Diantha put away her phone and headed for the exit. "Sinnoh's Psychic is down too. There's no way this was Team Flare."