For the past week, I've been wondering if people even read this part of the story. I really don't think you do. But to be completely honest, I usually and would probably skip past it. I've been contemplating just leaving this part out, but then I said no because it wouldn't be fair for all like 5 of you who actually take the time to read this part. So this section is devoted to you, not you who just skip over this part and continue on to read my wonderfully crafted story. No. This is for those of you who take the time and read this section in its entirety, so thank you.

Also, this story will now be in the M section because of certain graphic content. You'll understand after you read the chapter :)

IMPORTANT! By the way, I looked over and revised my previous chapters and added a little bit to Chapter 2. It's important to the story as it tells you a little bit more about the situation of this world and how Colress really fits into it, so I suggest and implore you to go back and re-read Chapter 2. For those of you who are lazy and really don't want to go back and re-read it, here is the excerpt from the chapter:

"Colress was the head of Element Five Pokémon Pharmaceuticals, commonly known as E5. While E5 was most well known for its advancements in enriched Pokémon supplement pills, it was also known for its immense amount of wealth. The previous owner of the company, Ghetsis, was the mastermind behind a revolutionary movement to free all Pokémon form their trainer's Pokéballs because he believed that Pokémon were not truly free until they were back in their natural habitat again. However, this was only a cover for his true intent, which was to mass control Pokémon to overthrow the government and rule over all of the country of Unova. He was thwarted by a coalition of all of the Unova gym leaders and the soon to be Unova Pokémon Champion. Because of this the company fell into a dire situation, the media coming at the organization from all angles as to its association with the terrorist. It was Colress, then a prodigal scientist who had just achieved his PhD in Pokébiology, who stepped up to take over the company and fought back the scrutiny of the media, effectively re-establishing the company to its former glory."

Now, without further to do...On to the story!

Chapter 5

Incompetence With a Side of Steak

Aldith and Colress were going over expense reports in his office, a tedious, yet, highly necessary part of running any corporation. Colress always went in with a positive attitude, however, after about a straight hour or work, Colress began to lose interest and pretty much zoned out for the rest of the meeting.

"Colress sir? Are you listening?" Aldith stopped going on about expenses and looked at Colress, who was fidgeting around with a pen, spinning it around his fingers.

"Yes, yes. Please continue." Colress replied, a glazed over look in his eyes.

"Okay, then what did I just say?"

Colress caught and held the pen he was spinning and looked dead straight at her. "I honestly have no clue."

"Sir," Aldith signed. "Now I have to start at the beginning."

Colress groaned as he slammed his head on his desk before looking back up, a giant red spot forming where his head hit the table. "Why can't you just handle all of this expense stuff?"

"I do sir. I just thought that it would be wise for you be aware of how the company, the company you are the head of, was doing, financially." Aldith ran her hand through her black hair and unbuttoned the top button of her shirt. "Now, back to what I was saying—" All of a sudden the door to the office burst open.

"Sir! We have some bad news!" A scientist in a white lab coat, sweat dripping down his face, stormed into the room along with three other scientists.

"It better be important for you to have barged in unannounced," Aldith sneered at all four of them.

"Please, Aldith, is that anyway to treat guests?" Colress got up from his chair and paced around to the front of his desk. "Now, what was it you had to say, gentlemen? Something about 'bad news'?" Colress shot them a menacing glare with his piercing yellow eyes.

One of the scientists who had followed in after the first stepped forward, but seemed to be a little shaky on his feet.

"Well, um, you see…" The scientist looked around the room for something focus his attention on, anything other than the looming golden eyes seemingly boring a hole through his skull.

"Look at me when you address me." Colress commanded. The man's head snapped up.

"One of the test subjects has escaped again. Keldeo, sir. This morning one of the wardens who was making his usual rounds noticed a cage had been sliced open. As it turned out, it was Keldeo's cage."

"Another one? Maybe I hired the wrong men for the job. This is now the second Pokémon that has escaped during this one week, alone. You are all testing my patience." Colress said. Even Aldith, who was used to Colress from being with him all day, never could get used to how quickly his persona could change.

"Don't worry sir, we already have one of our best men out on the job." The scientist tried to reassure him, a bead of sweat dripping down his brow.

"No, that won't be necessary men. We already finished what we needed to do with it." Colress' scowl turned into a smile. "The less smelly beasts about the facility the better."

"We are terribly sorry sir—"

"Before you continue, I'd like to remind you of my philosophy. All apologies are baseless apologies. If you were truly sorry for what had transpired, you would not have let it happen in the first place." Colress' smile was offset by the severity of his words.

In one fluid motion, Colress pulled a gun out from the inner pocket of his coat and shot the man who had relayed the information in the neck. The bullet nested itself in the wall; a small trail of smoke came from the hole. All that came out was gurgling sound as the man tried to let loose a scream. In a frantic attempt to stop the bleeding, he brought his hands to his neck, trying to keep the blood from pooling out from his windpipe, but it was to no avail. The hot red liquid spraying out from the wound like water from a fire hose stained the floor crimson at least three feet in front of him. The man fell to his knees and then to the floor, the side of his face pressed into his own pooling blood on the carpet. A couple of droplets of the man's blood had splattered onto Colress' glasses, although it didn't seem to faze him in the slightest. He simply whipped out a white handkerchief from his front breast pocket, took off his stained glasses and cleaned the lenses with the cloth. After replacing his glasses back on his face, he turned around and walked over to the large window behind his desk, looking out into the city.

"Now, let this be a lesson to the four—I mean three of you." Colress turned his head to glace back at the astonished and scared men. "I hope we will have no future problems, men?" The men nodded, shivering almost uncontrollably. "Now leave me." The men hurriedly made their way out of the office, failing to close the door behind them. With a sigh, Colress crossed the room to shut the door himself, stepping over the dead body on his way over. He then made his way back to his chair and sat back down, taking in a deep breath as he did so. "We're going to need to get Ned in here to clean this up. Aldith?"

It was then that Aldith realized she had been holding her breath. As she inhaled deeply, the smell of blood filled her nostrils.

"Yes, sorry Colress sir, I will be right on that." She replied hastily.

"Good. We'll continue this expense meeting later." Colress said, a soft smile formed about his face once again.

Aldith nodded as she exited the office, remembering to close the door behind her. She finally let out her breath when she was safely outside of the office, leaning on the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Shizuka walking by.

"Fancy meeting you here, Aldith," Shizuka said with a hint of sarcasm.

While the two of them normally spoke to one another in a respectable manner when they were around other colleagues, it was when the two of them were alone that they bared their fangs. However, it wasn't always like this. Shizuka and Aldith went to the same college, where they met and became fairly good friends. They both graduated around the same time, both of them majoring in managerial work. While Aldith went to work as a secretary at E5, Shizuka continued on with her education and went on to be an Idol Manager. Shizuka wasn't all too fond of E5 or Ghetsis and knew something was fishy bout the whole corporation. When the news came out that Ghetsis was the leader of a plot to take over the world, she had blamed Aldith for working for the organization. Even after the company was given to Colress, she still didn't trust the company. It wasn't until she signed on Yancy as an idol that she realized whom her father is. She put the fact that Yancy was Colress' daughter on the back burner because of the girl's outstanding ability as a signer. She also wasn't too fond about Aldith being in charge of Yancy's vocal training and that she was never allowed the opportunity to sit in on them.

"I don't have time to deal with this right now, Shizuka." Aldith's heart was still beating fast, her mind trying to excuse the dead body in Colress' office.

"Fine. Whatever. Do you have the copy of last night's—what is that smell?" Shizuka's nose crinkled a little bit.

"Yes I do. If you'll just come with me," Aldith brushed her question aside and continued down the hallway, leaving Shizuka to follow behind her.

"But seriously, what's that smell?" Shizuka pressed on; she obviously wasn't going to let this go anytime soon.

"Don't ask." Aldith replied as the two of them made their way to the elevator at the end of the hall.

The two teenagers were seated in a steak house somewhere deep in the middle of the commercial district of Nimbasa. He had never even heard of this part of town, but it wasn't much of shock to him because he had been so focused on beating Elesa that he never got the chance to explore the city to see what it had to offer. The two of them were seated at a booth with orange and white striped cushions in the corner of the restaurant. While the place wasn't the most beautiful restaurant he had ever eaten at, he couldn't argue with the quality of the food. Never before had he had such mouthwatering steak.

"Well if I can't ask about your work, can you at least tell me what it's like?" Kyouhei asked, who was now finished with his meal of steak and fries.

"What I can tell you about it is that it can be pretty stressful at times, but at the end of the day, its worth it." She said with a smile as she put down her drink. "So yes, I enjoy it a lot."

Kyouhei was now extremely curious as to what kind of job a teenager of her age could possibly have for a job that was that stressful, but he pushed the curiosity to the back of his mind.

"How old are you again?" Kyouhei asked.

"17 and 3 months." She replied. "you?"

"18, but you know it must be your calling if you enjoy it so much." He smiled back at her and stared out the window.

"Yes, I believe it may be." Yancy laughed a little as she followed his gaze out the window. "What's going through your mind right now?"

"Besides figuring out where you work?" They both chuckled at his little joke. "I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to beat this gym leader."

"Have you challenged her before?" Yancy asked with a quizzical look on her face. "You seem like a competent trainer."

"Yeah, that's what I thought before I came to this town too, but Elesa is much tougher than the other gym's I've challenged." Kyouhei looked down at his soft drink before he took a sip of it, the cold refreshment flowing down his throat.

"Isn't your battle in front of a live audience and broadcasted all over Nimbasa?" While Yancy wasn't a Pokémon trainer her self, she still knew a thing or two about the system of Pokémon Gyms and the Elite Four.

"Don't remind me." Kyouhei slumped down in his chair. Yancy couldn't hold back a small giggle. "What's so funny?"

"I take it that you're not one for putting your self out there in limelight."

"You can say that again. I get all choked up and my mind turns into a swirling mushy mess, if that makes any sense." Kyouhei tried using his hands to get his point across, but it seemed like she would have gotten it without his awkward gestures.

"I know the feeling, it can be hard if you aren't used to the pressure. Not many people can do it." Yancy said, sympathizing with him.

Kyouhei nodded in agreement. "That makes total sense. Maybe I just wasn't born with the gift of performing in front of others."

"Don't say that! You just have to have the right mind set! Anyone can do it if they put their mind to it!" Yancy exclaimed as she slammed her hands down on the table and stood up, looming over Kyouhei. He just sat there, looking into her fierce purple eyes. They were as compelling as they were scary. He looked around the place and noticed everyone staring at the two of them.

"Okay, I think I get it, but why don't you sit down." Kyouhei motioned with his eyes to the audience watching them. Yancy quickly snapped out of her trance and looked around and then sat back down, fidgeting with her dress. He was amazed at how one minute she would be so energized and then the next moment she went back to being shy again. It was cute. "You seem like you have a lot of experience with this."

"Yeah, just a little." Yancy said, still staring down at her hands.

"Do you have any advice?"

Yancy thought for a minute, her eyes focused on some point on the table. "Well, I guess something that helped me get over the fear was focusing all my thoughts and my entire being solely on what I was doing, blocking out everything else. I would always keep reminding my self that I wasn't performing for the audience but rather for myself. As long as I thought like that, I could get through it."

"Huh," Kyouhei mumbled, comprehending everything she said. "That was surprisingly good advice for someone who has had 'just a little' experience."

"Oh, that's nothing." She looked back at him, smiling. "I hope that helped at least a little."

"You know, I think it did." Kyouhei was fired up once again with a renewed flame in his chest. "This fight is going to be a lot different from before."

"Glad I could help. Tell you what, if you win, I'll let you take me on the Ferris wheel. Deal?" Yancy offered.

"You promise?"
"I promise."

"Deal." Kyouhei held out his hand. "Now we got to make it official."

"Sure." Yancy laughed, holding out her hand as well and the two of them shook on the deal.

After a bit more small talk, the two of them got up to leave the restaurant and to head over to the gym. When they got outside, Yancy thought she could hear a faint cry coming from somewhere nearby.

"Do you hear something?" Yancy asked as she tried to locate the source of the cry. There was something very familiar about it.

"Something like what?" Kyouhei looked at her confused. "I don't hear anything."

"Hold on." Yancy stood still and tried to listen hard for whatever it was she was hearing. Then she heard it again. "This way."

The two of them walked down an alleyway that lead to a small, dirt parking lot behind the steak house, where they saw what was making the noise. They both gasped in surprise.

"Oh no," Kyouhei said with a gasp.

Lying on the ground, looking terribly beat up and shaggy, was a Keldeo. It literally looked like someone had thrown it into a washing machine. It's blue and white fur was all matted and its eyes were a bright purple. Kyouhei knew exactly what was wrong.

"We have to help it!" Yancy semi whispered as she clung to Kyouhei's shirt, her voice full of concern for the poor Pokémon.

"I know, I'm on it." Kyouhei slowly made his way over to the wounded Pokémon, crouching a little. "Hey there buddy, I'm not here to hurt you, I promise. I want to help you.

Kyouhei didn't know if Pokémon could even understand human speech but he thought he'd give it a try. He had seen the green haired trainer do it to the Darmanitan so he thought, heck, why not. Step after step, Kyouhei got closer to the blue Pokémon. He was almost in arm's reach when the Pokémon leaped up and started swinging its horn around wildly.

Kyouhei jumped back a little, falling on to his butt, hard. He groaned as he got back up, feeling his ribs start to throb again. Yancy was there and supported him as he fought to regain his balance.

"I don't think it's up for negotiations, Kyouhei," Yancy stated, looking at him with worry.

"Yeah, I kind off figured." Kyouhei reached down with that hand that wasn't draped over Yancy's shoulders and grabbed on to a pokéball on his belt.

"Go Lucario!"