- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Partners
-
Summary: After the events of Black and White, Ghetsis escapes capture and flees Unova towards Johto, seeking a weapon more suited to his needs. Team Plasma itself is divided; those who supported N and his consideration for pokemon, and those who follow Ghetsis, believing the story they'd been told that N betrayed them. Yza is among the latter, a grunt who steps up to command her unit with no other leaders in sight, taking charge of Ghetsis' mission - one that none of the grunts actually understand. Slowly (and with a little help), she begins to doubt her loyalties as realizes exactly what it is that Team Plasma is really all about.
In essence, I wondered what Ghetsis was up to in the two years between BW and BW2, and combined it with another minor plot that I cut from my main fic. This version is the one submitted to the contest judges; content was cut to fit the 10k word limit, and feedback has not yet been implemented. When that does (eventually...) happen, the full version will be added for comparison. (Probably with a small segment detailing the differences.)
Anyways... That's all I got.
“Alright, listen up!” the mission leader bellowed, his voice echoing loudly in the silence against the walls of Mt. Moon. “You all know why we’re here, and here’s how it’s going to work. We march in from the east, lock down the city, and interrogate everyone. Everyone. We must succeed, for the team’s sake! For the sake of pokémon everywhere! Our future depends on our success!”
Instead of a rallying cheer, the only sound that followed was the dropping of water deep in the cave. They all knew the insanity of what was being proposed here. And yet… they’d done the unthinkable, and succeeded once before. They could do it again. They had to.
Among the assembled grunts, the voice of one girl suddenly rang out. “But sir,” she said, voice authoritative as she stepped forward and lowered her somewhat uncomfortable hood so her long flowing natural red hair could breathe. From the corner of her eye, she saw Doug looking her way, as if warning her to shut her mouth. She pretended not to notice. “We have only rumors. There’s no proof that this old guy has, or has ever had, the feather. We don’t know if he still lives here, or even if he’s still alive!”
“It’s not your place to question our orders, grunt Yza,” the leader sneered.
“It’s not your place to be giving them!” Yza shouted back. The grunt looked furious, but Yza continued. “You’re not in command.”
“I am in command, because I took command,” the black-haired grunt insisted. “I don’t recall seeing you – or anyone else – jumping at the opportunity!”
Yza grunted in response, crossing her arms. She would have, had she known the position were up for grabs. With all the sages either on the run or arrested back in Unova, there were few members left qualified to hold mission leadership positions, at least as far as Yza knew, but still… When she received the order to join this mission, she assumed new leaders had already been chosen – the Shadow Triad, perhaps. They seemed the most likely candidates.
When she arrived, however, she had not expected to be part of a gaggle of clueless grunts shipped off to Kanto with no clear leader, left to search blindly for an item that may or may not even exist from a man who may or may not still be alive.
And yet… here she was.
She was about to voice this when Doug – freaking Doug of all people! – cut her off. “Who cares who’s in charge? The mission was given by the higher-ups, regardless of who they are. We’re burning daylight. Let’s move!”
The lead grunt’s gaze drifted angrily to Doug, but he offered no comment save ordering the already-departing grunts to head out. Yza shivered as she followed the flow out of the chilly, zubat-infested cavern, ignoring Doug with all of her remaining strength.
It had taken almost an hour before Pewter’s police force had mobilized and begun to round up the team. In that time, Pewter’s gym leader, Brock, had taken down nearly half of them on his own. The defeated grunts had retreated to avoid being captured. The ones who ended up getting captured the quickest were those who had no pokémon to defend themselves with. They were only here to be interrogators, but they were easy pickings for the armed officers and their trained growlithe.
Yza had her hands full dealing with the gym leader’s kabutops, which, although it was decimating her pokémon, she couldn’t help but be amazed by. She’d never seen an ancient pokémon from back in her home region before and never expected to in her lifetime – despite the fact that Lord N had owned both a carracosta and an archeops – and here she was, facing down one of Kanto’s more dangerous revived fossils. Brock had trained this one well – it had attacks of a variety of types to take on several opponents with, all of which it was using to deal with Yza’s misdreavus and umbreon. Still, all things considered, her two pokémon alone were enough to keep the kabutops busy, which she couldn’t help but feel proud of. It only boosted her ego further when five other grunts’ pokémon were taken out all at once by Brock’s monstrous onix off to her right.
Just as the kabutops was about to land an attack on her fallen umbreon, a scolipede appeared out of nowhere, deflected the slash, and engaged the rock-type in a fresh fight. Misdreavus floated towards Umbreon to check on him, until the dark-type barked at her, reprimanding her for abandoning the battle. The ghost rolled her eyes and turned back to the fight, tossing a shadow ball at the kabutops.
Meanwhile, Doug ran up beside Yza. “We can leave,” he said. “The team is getting herded into this park. We’re being surrounded. We have to get out of here before we’re completely cut off. I’ve got what we need to know.”
“Where is it?” Yza asked, ignoring the urgency in his voice. Their mission came first. If he had the information, then he was the only one who needed to get away. It was everyone else’s duty to buy him time. That was what was expected – required even – of a grunt. Still, Yza didn’t particularly like the thought of being left behind to rot in a jail cell, so if she could learn the information too, she had an excuse to leave before the other grunts, too.
Doug rolled his eyes, but he answered anyway. “The bad news is that it isn’t here. It was given to the Johto champion on his visit here a few years ago. That’s the good news. We just need to find Ethan.”
As Umbreon lunged and tackled the kabutops, successfully distracting it from slashing an injured Misdreavus to ribbons, Yza turned back to her partner, disgust in her voice. “I suppose that should have been obvious. Who better to guard it?”
They were distracted by Scolipede’s scream as it was sent crashing into Umbreon. Misdreavus swooped in to keep the rock-type’s attention off the fallen pokémon, hoping to give them time to recover. Yza recalled Umbreon instead, and ordered a confuse ray from her ghost. As Kabutops began to sway on its’s feet, Yza called out to the team, “We have news! Everyone, retreat!”
Robbing Ethan’s house turned out to be easier than Yza expected. Not that she’d anticipated armed guards and tripwires, but she certainly didn’t expect to be able to just kick down the door and hold the champion’s mother hostage.
And yet, once again, here she was.
Doug demanded she summon her son, and she did so, clearly confused as to why they would be asking for the strongest trainer in the region.
What disturbed Yza, though, was the person who showed up with Ethan – the same boy who battled and defeated both Ghetsis and Lord N back in Unova, the very boy she herself had been defeated by numerous times – Hilbert. What was he doing here in Johto? How long had he been here? Was he on vacation after his ordeal, or was he tracking the team? Surely there was no way he could have known where Ghetsis had fled to… could there?
For his part, Hilbert didn’t seem surprised to see Team Plasma in this foreign region. Ethan, however, did, tossing an endless barrage of questions at Yza and the grunts she had assembled for this mission – the black-haired “leader” had been captured back in Pewter, and without her even trying, those who escaped had looked to her for instructions. She had yet to have the chance, but the first one she got, she fully planned to rub it in Doug’s greasy face.
Before she could respond to anything, Ethan would ask yet another question. At one point, he’d even asked why she hadn’t responded, apparently oblivious to the fact that he hadn’t stopped to take a breath and leave a pause where she could calmly explain their presence.
“Shut up!” she finally bellowed, startling Hilbert, who flinched at the sudden noise. Ethan simply stopped talking, his mouth hanging open and his finger in the air. “My god, first Elm and now you? Do you Johtoan people even know how to close your mouths?” She crossed her arms and fixed her gaze on Hilbert as she spoke, glaring him down with what she hoped was an intimidating scowl. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt here. All we want from you is that feather you got back in Kanto.”
“What feather? You mean the Rainbow Wing?” Ethan asked, obviously confused. “I don’t have it.” And with that, he whipped out a pokéball. Hilbert did the same, though not without casting a confused glance of his own at the Johto champion. Doug, however, was faster, and his scolipede was by his side before either champion had raised their arm.
Yza turned her head slightly to catch Doug’s eye with a sigh. “Search the house,” she said, raising her own pokéball. As the rest of the gathered team began to uproot the house, the three trainers tossed their pokéballs out. Yza was, at present, the team’s best battler, and even then, she wouldn’t likely last long against two champions at once, and they knew it.
Battling proved unnecessary, however, as Doug’s scolipede rammed Ethan’s surprised mother against a wall, one of the poisoned blades on its head pressed against her neck. Yza turned completely away from the champions in alarm. “Doug!” she cried. “What are you doing? I said we’re not here to hurt them!”
“Relax,” the blonde boy replied coolly. “This way, no one, neither person nor pokémon, gets hurt. So long as the champions behave themselves, that is. Can’t spring any surprises on us.” He glared at Ethan. “Now, would the both of you kindly recall your pokémon?”
Yza turned and watched as Ethan and Hilbert exchanged a glance, then recalled their typhlosion and samurott, respectively. She relaxed a bit, resenting herself for allowing this but finding herself unable to order her partner to stop. Instead, she simply pulled out a chair from the nearby kitchen table and sat down, crossing her legs, and ordering one of the grunts searching the fridge – or so she hoped that’s what he was doing in there – to toss her a drink. Doug, however, was not satisfied.
“I said recall them,” he demanded, eyes still locked on Ethan.
The Johto champion sighed. “Forget it, Xatu, he knows,” he said. Out of nowhere, a tall, green bird appeared next to Ethan – teleportation, Yza realized – and Ethan returned it to its ball. The psychic must have been released outside, waiting for a mental command to launch a sneak attack. The redhead grimaced at herself for not predicting this, and angrily took a sip of whatever it was she had been given. Some weaker brand of beer, she deduced. Not the lemonade she was suddenly craving, but it would do. She already felt calmer.
As the team continued to turn the house inside-out, Yza attempted to talk the information out of the champions, with a similar success rate.
“I already told you, I don’t have it!” Ethan insisted, waving his hands animatedly in front of him. “It, uh… vanished years ago when I summoned Ho-Oh at the Tin Tower!”
Yza’s eyes widened at this new piece of information Ethan unknowingly gifted, and she considered it for a moment. Is that what Ghetsis wanted? Was this feather necessary in some way to summon one of Johto’s legendary pokémon? She filed the information away for future contemplation. “It doesn’t work that way,” the Plasma member replied, though in all honestly, she had no idea. “We know you still have it. Just tell us where to find it, and we’ll leave.”
“Why d-do you want to know?” Hilbert countered. Yza told him to be quiet, that she wasn’t talking to him, but he continued anyway. Just like old times. Brat. “No, you’re going to tell me why. Nothing good can come of it if it involves you… Team Plasma. What are you planning to do with it?”
“What do you think?” Yza replied, shrugging. Then she jerked a thumb towards Ethan. “Summon Ho-Oh, I imagine. I don’t actually know,” she admitted casually. “I’m just following orders. The higher-ups don’t tell us what they’re really after anymore. Thanks for that, by the way.”
“Look,” Hilbert said, swallowing and taking a hesitant step forward. “Y-you know as well as I do that this won’t end well. What could you possibly want to summon Ho-Oh for? Surely you don’t think you can control it, or… or capture it, or… I mean, look what Ghetsis has done already! He betrayed you, all of you, and N.”
Yza, who had been struggling to remain calm while listening to Hilbert’s pleading, suddenly felt a seething rage and stood up, kicking over her chair in the process. “N betrayed us!” she bellowed. “How dare you?”
“No, he didn’t,” Hilbert answered, flinching back a step as if the force of her words were actually pushing him. “I-I know N. I know him better than you think. I probably know him better than anyone, even Ghetsis. He spoke to me. He opened his mind to me. He was used, too. Betrayed. He honestly believed that what he was doing was for the good of pokémon, that what he was doing was right. That may not matter to you, but-”
Yza took two steps forward and slapped Hilbert across the cheek. “How dare you?” she repeated. “You knew N? You dare to speak of him as if… as if… you were friends! Ghetsis did not betray us, N did! He was the one who challenged you to that pointless debate, that ridiculous battle of ideals! There was no need! We had what we wanted! We were in prime position to save the pokémon of Unova! But no, he threw it away for his own sake, his own selfish curiosity! I trusted him, and he threw away everything we had worked for when he challenged you!” Yza stood there fuming, hands balled into fists at her sides, breathing heavily.
It only infuriated her further when Hilbert calmly whispered, “No. You really don’t know what happened at the league that night, do you?” His voice slowly began to rise as he continued. “What lie did Ghetsis tell you? What did he say happened? Or did he simply escape custody and flee and not tell you anything until he summoned you all the way out here to blindly do his dirty work again?”
“He did not flee!” Yza screamed, pointing an accusing finger at Hilbert. “He was forced into hiding because of you! We all were! Why? Why are you constantly opposing us? Why do you insist on standing against us?! Why can’t you see the good we’re-”
“Good?” Hilbert asked calmly, his voice cutting right through Yza’s shouts and silencing her. “What good? Please, tell me. What did Ghetsis do in Unova? He planned to use the legendary dragon to rule. How is that for the good of anyone? He didn’t even tell you why he needs the Rainbow Wing. It’s a safe bet that he wants Ho-Oh for some reason. But why? What do you think he can do with that kind of power? Why did he want Zekrom?”
Yza was silent, angry, unable to form a coherent thought, let alone verbalize one. It was ridiculous! How could Hilbert actually believe this nonsense? Ghetsis had wanted Zekrom by his side because with the approval of the legendary dragon and its hero, he could validate his actions to the inhabitants of Unova. How else would they understand his dreams? Surely he wanted the same thing with Ho-Oh… right? With that kind of power on his side, he could…
He could… do what, exactly? Ho-Oh was a powerful legendary figure in Johto, for sure, but certainly not in the same respect that Zekrom was in Unova. Yza realized she had no answer for that at the moment, and that only made her angrier.
As Yza struggled internally, Doug kept an eye on Ethan, who had been suspiciously silent during this exchange. One glance, however, was enough to convince himself that Ethan was legitimately dumbfounded, watching the entire exchange cluelessly. Yza’s misdreavus meanwhile, floating by Ethan’s mother, was apparently feeding off the terrified woman’s fear. The woman didn’t seem to even notice the ghost behind her, grinning madly.
An uncomfortable silence had befallen the small area. Yza was still fuming, unable to form a proper sentence. Hilbert, likewise, remained silent now, allowing his words to sink in. Ethan kept looking from Hilbert to Yza, as if expecting one of them to spontaneously explode. Doug crossed his arms, getting impatient.
Another grunt stomped loudly down the stairs, interrupting the silence. He spotted Yza and Hilbert having a standoff and approached her warily. “Sir, it’s not here. We’ve searched everywhere. What do we do now?”
Yza snapped out of her thoughts, pushing them to the back of her mind to deal with later. If the item was not here, where else could it be? She considered the possibility that Ethan had left it for safe keeping somewhere… with professor Elm, maybe? But then again, Ethan didn’t look like the type to think that way. “What are you talking about? It has to be here! Somewhere we’d never think to look… check for loose floorboards. Taped under the kitchen table. Under his pillow!”
“Or on his person,” Doug said suddenly, his eyes locked on the Johto champion’s backpack.
Ethan’s face flushed bright red as he replied, “What? No, I told you, I don’t- Gah!”
“Frisk him, Shuppet,” Doug ordered, his own ghost appearing behind Ethan and searching him. It didn’t take long for the ghost to pick something from Ethan’s jacket and drop it into its trainer’s open palm. Hilbert grit his teeth, and Yza stomped over to look at the object.
Exactly as it was described, the feather in Doug’s palm glittered in the colors of the rainbow, unbent and undamaged. This is it? Yza thought to herself.
“It’s awfully small…” Doug said, as though reading her mind. She wondered for a moment if the shuppet had accidentally picked off one of the Johto champion’s gym badges.
“It doesn’t matter,” the redhead replied. “We’ve got what we came for. Everyone, pull out!”
“Please,” Hilbert whispered as Yza turned to leave. She stopped and half-turned her head back at him. “I’m telling you… this will not end well. Please, think about what I told you. Just… consider it.”
“If you’re done crying,” Yza replied, resuming her departure, “I’ve got a job to do.”
Their next mission was to infiltrate the library in Ecruteak, looking for information on how to summon Ho-Oh. Yza and Doug, dressed up as tourists, had found an article mentioning Ethan by name, so they knew it was the most recent sighting. Ethan’s interview, however, didn’t explain how the summoning ritual worked, so they resorted to sifting through Johto history books. They had to figure it out before word spread of their robbery. It would be far too obvious to be looking into Ho-Oh immediately after its associated item was lifted from the local champion.
Thankfully, it hadn’t taken them long. By the time they’d discovered what they needed, Ghetsis had already informed them that he’d acquired the Sacred Ash, another item important to the summoning ritual. There was only one more thing they required…
“I thought these were dancers?” Doug whined as his scolipede got roasted by a flamethrower. “Why the hell are they so strong?”
“They’re the guardians,” Yza cried back, frustrated, as her misdreavus went down to a thunderbolt. “I guess they’d have to be.” Why the hell did Ghetsis only send me this useless grunt army? He had to have known they’d be strong, and that common grunts wouldn’t stand a chance. Even as she thought it, four of her accomplices’ pokémon were bashed into each other, courtesy of one of the dancer’s espeon. Then, in the blink of an eye, another two were shot down with a psybeam. Useless, the lot of them.
The dancers were apparently an important part of the summoning ritual, and were required in order to make Ho-Oh revive, together with the Rainbow Wing. Yza had yet to figure out how that worked, as the kimoko girls has refused to cooperate. Yza and the rest of the team had no choice but to battle them to make them agree. So far, they weren’t having much success.
This is ridiculous, she thought to herself, watching a vaporeon turn itself into water and allow three separate attacks to fly straight through it harmlessly. There’re only five trainers, each with a single pokémon, and they’re wiping us out five at a time. We’ll be lucky to take down three of them before we’re all beaten. We need to start battling smarter.
“Umbreon!” Yza cried out. The dark-type she was watching completely ignored her, though, instead spraying a noxious goop over a wave of incoming liepard. Oops. Not my umbreon.
She turned to survey the room, and finally found her umbreon tussling with the jolteon who had attacked Misdreavus. “Umbreon, forget that one, go for the espeon! It can’t touch you!”
Her dark-type barked a reply and kicked the jolteon in the face, giving it enough time to scramble away towards the purple pokémon instead. Doug’s palpitoad leapt over to engage the jolteon instead, successfully drawing its attention with a glob of mud to the face.
Yza took command of the entire group at that point. She sent the handful of krokorok in the room to help deal with the jolteon, while directing the sandile to the espeon, figuring her umbreon would require less help. Doug, like many of the other grunts, looked rather angry at having their pokémon ordered around by someone else, but they had no more time for stupidity. It had only taken one moronic grunt sending out his sewaddle against the flareon right at the start for Yza to realize that they’d be fighting an uphill battle.
Once they began playing to type advantages, the team overall was doing a little better, although far from being successful. Yza was making sure her side was fighting the correct targets, but the kimono girls were also doing their best to have their pokémon ignore their attackers and focus on the ones they could damage. The result was many blocked attacks and a lot of moving around.
Yza had to duck as an umbreon – she wasn’t sure if it was hers or not – leaped over her head, followed by a swarm of sewaddle and swadloon, swinging from their silk like spinarak-man. As soon as she righted, she was bowled over by a pansear as it tried to escape the vaporeon’s water attacks. Yza managed to grab the water pokémon by the tail, successfully halting its chase, but making her the target instead. She was thoroughly soaked as a result, and the vaporeon easily slipped out of her grasp as she fell to the ground.
As she cursed and tried to stand, she slipped and bashed her head into a boldore. The offending pokémon turned to glance at her, and waited patiently while she put a hand on its side, using it to balance as she stood up once again.
And came face to face with Hilbert.
“What the…? What are you doing here?”
“Stopping you!” Hilbert responded. “You didn’t even think about what I said to you back in New Bark, did you?”
Yza glared back at him, feeling annoyingly pathetic and soggy, dripping all over from the vaporeon’s attack. She glanced down to make sure her Team Plasma uniform wasn’t see-through. “Of course not.”
“Well, you should!” Hilbert shouted at her over the roar of a typhlosion. So, Ethan had to be here somewhere, too.
“Listen, I don’t have time for you to try and convert me,” Yza said, turning around. Hilbert reached for her and grabbed her upper arm, spinning her back in his direction. He immediately looked shocked with himself and let her go, but refused to look away.
“Listen, we-”
“That’s enough! Everyone, freeze!” shouted a voice over the commotion. Yza turned to find the source. She found Doug, holding a knife to the throat of one of the dancers. His scolipede had one of the umbreon pinned to the wall, also by the throat, using the blade-like horn on its head.
Yza immediately thought it was hers, until she spotted her umbreon doing its best to sit on top of the espeon and hold it in place. Satisfied, she returned her attention to where it needed to be. “Doug, what the hell are you doing?”
“Winning this battle,” he replied, looking at her angrily. She knew what he was thinking. They were already on the losing side. Now, with two champions here, they were hopelessly outmatched. It was the same tactic he’d used on Ethan’s mother. Yza was furious – no one was supposed to be hurt! – but she couldn’t see a winning move, either. Without a hostage or two, they would all eventually be defeated and captured, or escape and have to face Ghetsis with a failure, in which case they’d probably be better off just surrendering here and now. Doug was doing what he thought was necessary to ensure his team’s goals.
“Killing me will solve nothing,” the dancer in his grip choked out. She wasn’t shaking or even struggling. She just stood there, eyes open with a passive expression, staring straight ahead. Doug turned towards the girl in his grasp.
“Of course not,” he replied. “I assume we need you all for the ritual. And I don’t expect any of you would break under the torture of a few bloody cuts.” He glanced over at his scolipede and nodded. “But I doubt we have a use for your pokémon.”
“Wai-”
“Breee!” the umbreon cried out as the blade was pushed into its throat.
There were gasps from around the room, not just from the other dancers. Yza heard several grunts cover their mouths as well, and Hilbert behind her was easy to hear. She couldn’t be sure she didn’t gasp herself. Team Plasma was fighting for pokémon… what was Doug thinking?
The captured dancer finally showed some expression, her eyes wide with concern, as her pokémon kicked the air violently. Doug nodded again and his pokémon backed off a bit, allowing the dark-type to finally catch a breath. The blade had looked quite painful and drawn blood, but it didn’t appear the umbreon were otherwise in any serious danger. It stopped struggling as soon as it could breathe.
Doug shoved the dancer to the floor. “You four will recall your pokémon, and then you will hand over all of your pokéballs to our leader. No, not you,” he added to the dancer he just shoved. “The umbreon will stay where it is until the others are withdrawn. You too, champions.”
As the other dancers reluctantly returned their pokémon (there was a shout in the background that could only be Ethan, crying, “This is so unfair!”), Hilbert stepped up beside Yza and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Is that what you want to be fighting for?”
She turned sharply to face him, but she found she had nothing to say. All she could think of was the imaginary scenario of her own umbreon pinned to that wall, instead.
“That’s the second time you’ve threated someone now! It needs to stop!”
“I was doing what I had to do!”
“That doesn’t make it okay! We only threaten people who abuse pokémon, not as a means of coercion!”
“And where would that have gotten us? We’d all be like them!” Doug gestured to the seven tied-up humans – the five kimono girls, Ethan, and Hilbert. “We’d all be captured and imprisoned and our mission would be over. I did what I had to do, and because of that, we are still on track. We succeeded. We have what we need.”
“You don’t get to make those decisions!” Yza screamed back at him.
“Now I do!” Doug shouted back. He pointed a finger directly in her face. “I didn’t challenge you when that jackass Edgar got himself captured in Pewter. I thought you knew how to be a leader. But look at how this mission has gone so far! Everything we’ve accomplished has been, ultimately, through me! The Rainbow Wing, the Sacred Ash, and now the ritual components. And we’ve even subdued two champions! Do you not realize what I’ve done here?”
“Do you?” Yza shot back. She was about to point out that Ghetsis had handled the Sacred Ash with his own grunts, but that was a weak argument.
Doug stared, waiting… and then laughed when he realized that was her only counter. “I realize you’re no leader. I realize you’ve been consorting with the enemy.”
“What are you–”
“Him,” Doug gestured, again, to the prisoners, pointing at Hilbert. “You’ve been talking and talking and talking. That’s how you’ve tried to solve everything so far. And each time, you’ve failed. You’ve let him get into your head! You’ve forgotten why we’re doing this!”
“Why are we doing this?” Yza demanded angrily. “You’re right, I don’t know. Do you? Have our leaders graced you with their grand plans without my knowledge?”
“We are creating a better world for pokémon and humans alike!”
“By threatening to kill them if they don’t obey us?”
“No! By liberating pokémon from people. That has always been Team Plasma’s goal. And it was yours, once upon a time, when I recruited you. I’d ask what happened to you, but I already know. That fool over there poisoned your mind. You lost faith in Ghetsis, not just in N, when he lost that battle, and now he’s been poisoning you with traitorous thoughts ever since we’ve been here. And until I can trust that you won’t turn us all in, I’m going to be in charge around here.”
Yza was not about to let that happen. “Good luck communicating with Ghetsis, then. He is expecting me, and only I know how to reach him. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and report my success.”
As she stormed away, Yza wondered just what had gotten into her so suddenly. But as she entered the hideout’s command room and spotted her umbreon, bandaged and sleeping, she felt a knot in her stomach. She looked back towards the captive champions… Maybe Ghetsis could wait a few more minutes.
“Everyone, march! Ghetsis awaits us at the top of this tower!”
As it turned out, their leader was not interested in how the mission succeeded, only that it had. And so, until it was accomplished, Yza retained control over the grunts, much to Doug’s fury. And now here they were, marching all of their prisoners up to the top of the Tin Tower, where Ghetsis awaited them with the Sacred Ash, ready to put his new plan into action.
Yza had been surprised that the three guards of the tower let them pass without so much as a warning. Perhaps they knew that this party was on its way due to Ghetsis’s group which had already passed them, or perhaps they saw the captured kimono girls and decided they were no match. Either way, the team walked right by them and proceeded to the top of the tower.
“Ah, welcome, welcome!” Ghetsis exclaimed as the party approached. He spotted Hilbert among the prisoners. “Well, well, finally! The rat who foiled my last great plan. Finally, you are where you belong.”
The top floor of the tower was exposed to the night sky. Ghetsis stood across from them, on the elevated platform in the room’s center, partially obscured behind a small pillar. On top of that pillar, Yza saw a small pile of dust – what she assumed must be the Sacred Ash that would become Ho-Oh. She and the grunts took their positions. A handful of grunts stood by the two champions, in case they needed to be guarded. The kimono girls were untied and directed to take whatever positions they required for their ritual. The rest of the grunts filed around the pillar in the center of the platform.
This was it. The moment they had been planning for, their reason for coming to Johto, was about to occur. Despite her doubts, Yza couldn’t help but feel excited. Ghetsis was about to perform one of his famous speeches. She had not been present for the one in Unova. This time, she would see it first-hand.
“People, listen well! I believe it is about time we get started-”
“Save it, Ghetsis,” Hilbert bellowed. Still managing to ruin things, even as a prisoner. “No one cares what you have to say. You gave yourself away back at the Unova pokémon league. There’s no one here that you need to put on a show for, or prove yourself to, or whatever it is you think the purpose of those speeches is.”
Ghetsis looked down at him disapprovingly. “Someone sure is impatient. What of procedures, boy? After how you spoiled my last performance, I think it prudent to make sure this one flows smoothly.”
Hilbert shrugged. “Fine, do whatever you want. I just figured you’d want to start this ritual before that nasty looking storm gets here and makes all that ash soggy. Good luck reviving it then.”
Yza turned to look beyond the tower at the horizon, where she indeed did notice a large cloud blotting out much of the night sky, complete with the occasional lightning flash. Ghetsis would have to speed things up if he wanted to complete the summoning before the downpour started. Not that she actually expected a little water to stop the summoning, but being on top of the tower in that lightning…
For his part, Ghetsis looked between the pillar of ash and the storm cloud. Yza guessed he was probably trying to decide whether or not the storm actually could pose a risk to the summoning ritual or not; surprisingly for someone who spoke as often as he did, he had yet to respond to Hilbert, and looked as though he weren’t sure what to say. Nor did any of the grunts, but that was nothing new.
Finally, he turned to the pillar and said, “Very well. Girls, dance. Do whatever it is you do.”
And with that, he stuffed the Rainbow Wing into the pile of Sacred Ash.
“Now!” came a sudden scream and a flash of light… then, suddenly, everything was in chaos. A samurott had appeared, and immediately cut Hilbert and Ethan free while simultaneously blasting back their guards. Ethan had out his typhlosion and xatu and several other pokémon that Yza could not identify. She wondered why Hilbert didn’t send out any more of his, but it was a moot point.
As the grunts all around them let out pokémon to combat the champions and the kimono girls looked on in surprise, Yza darted up to the platform beside Ghetsis. She grabbed two fistfuls of the ash, and Ghetsis, upon seeing her there, caught her wrist. “And just what do you think you’re doing?”
“The prisoners are free. We need to gather up the Sacred Ash and the Rainbow Wing before they can steal them back!”
“You propose to flee at this pathetic excuse of an inconvenience? No,” Ghetsis argued, tightening his grip on her wrist. “Put it back. We are going to continue. Dancers! Start, now!”
As Yza dropped one handful of ash back on the pillar with the feather, the kimono girls looked at each other with doubt, but resigned themselves to performing their duties. Ethan continued barking orders at his pokémon, trying to reach the platform, while the other grunts held them off. Curiously, Hilbert did not move from his original position, his samurott only fighting back the grunts who came too close.
And then it happened. The as the dancers danced, the Rainbow Wing begun to glow. And after a few seconds, the entire pile did, too. Ghetsis leered at the ash with a laugh and withdrew a pokéball from his gaudy robes.
“Chandelure, now! Inferno!”
“What?” Hilbert screamed, and suddenly, he wanted to move. More grunts blocked his path as he and his samurott attempted to start forwards. Yza, meanwhile, stared in shock up at the fire-type pokémon Ghetsis has released. What was he doing?
The ghost-type gleefully spewed a large column of indigo fire on top of the glowing Sacred Ash. A sound like that of some sort of bird crying out was heard, loud even over the unnatural flames, and Yza swore it was coming from the Sacred Ash itself.
And then she realized what Ghetsis was trying to do.
“Chandelure’s fire consumes souls,” she said aloud. Ghetsis, who still had hold of one of her wrists, looked sideways at her. “You’re trying to revive Ho-Oh without a soul!”
“Yes, my dear, very good!” he laughed. “My failure in Unova taught me one important lesson. I can not rely on other living beings with minds of their own to do my work for me. My influence can obviously only extend so far. But this time… with this, a pokémon without a soul… it will be completely unable to resist my commands! Why do I need Reshiram or Zekrom, when I can have a personalized weapon at my disposal?”
Yza suddenly made a mental connection. That bird-like wail she had heard coming from the Inferno… She’d been assuming this entire time that the Sacred Ash itself was Ho-Oh, and she still held a portion of that in her hand…
There was the only way she could see any sort of hope for this situation.
As soon as the chandelure’s fire attack stopped, the ash now glowing a sinister shade of violet, Yza reached out and added her other, untainted fistful back into the pile.
“What’s this?” Ghetsis demanded. “I told you to put it all back! Chandelure, burn it again, quickly!”
But when they both looked up, the chandelure was no longer there. It didn’t take long to find it, engaged in battle with some sort of green and yellow frog – one of Ethan’s pokémon. Yza wrenched her wrist out of Ghetsis’s grasp and darted towards Hilbert and his samurott.
“Do I have to do everything myself?” Ghetsis demanded, throwing down a handful of pokéballs. Yza turned upon reaching Hilbert to see a seismitoad, a cofagrigus, and a hydreigon, all lunging towards the green frog.
Yza turned back to Hilbert. “We have to take down that chandelure,” she told him, earning a few stunned gasps from the grunts he had been battling. “That’s how he plans to control your legendary. It’s part ghost-type. Its fire does something to souls.”
Hilbert just nodded, taking her explanation at face value, but she decided she’d better help anyway, just to get the point across that she was on his side.
“Let’s go!” she cried, throwing her pokéballs as close to the frog as she could. Umbreon and Misdreavus appeared just in time to block an attack from one of Ghetsis’s pokémon – Yza couldn’t tell what it was or which one used it in the chaos. Hilbert had also thrown a pokéball in that direction, and she recognized the blue pokémon as the same Sawk she’d lost to a few times back in Unova. It wasted no time in backing the hydreigon from the group, taking it on one-on-one.
Yza wondered why he didn’t use something else; strong as Sawk was, it couldn’t hurt a ghost – and then it turned and stomped on the ground, and several rocks shot up from out of nowhere below it and skewered the chandelure, while Umbreon held it in place with his teeth.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” came a voice that Yza recognized instantly.
“I’m stopping this before it gets out of control,” she shot back, then ran forwards and tackled Doug to the ground. He wasn’t expecting it, and she was able to get in a few punches before she was thrown off him. He seemed too injured to try to get back up, cradling what was likely a broken nose.
And then the entire area lit up violet. All eyes around were drawn to the center pillar, where a beam of fiery purple light shot upwards into the clouds. (Yza realized the storm was right on top of them now, but she hadn’t noticed the lightning, probably due to all the pokémon attacks.) A few moments passed and the beam faded, only to be replaced by a screeching sound from the storm clouds above – the same bird-like cry that had come from the ash not too long ago.
Yza looked to the pillar – the ash was gone.
And then her attention was drawn upwards again as a giant figure slowly floated down out of the clouds, flapping massive multi-colored wings and looking quite violent for a being without a soul. That was it, then. They hadn’t brought down the chandelure, but it didn’t matter in the end, anyway.
Ghetsis laughed and shouted, “Ahaha! Not even stealing the ash could stop this! With this reborn legendary, I will now achieve my – I mean, Team Plasma’s – ultimate goal!”
Back in Unova, Yza stood silently in the center of the League HQ. Her role in stopping Ghetsis was likely the only reason she’d been allowed to see them rather than immediately being detained; though, having the current champion vouch for her probably didn’t hurt, either.
“I’ll try to ease them up, but I don’t think they’re going to want to be as lenient as I will,” Hilbert had warned her.
He hadn’t been kidding. None of them were happy about the damage done to Unova’s relation with Johto, but Hilbert had tried to assure them that he and Ethan could repair it. Marshall in particular was not pleased that Ghetsis had escaped again, but conceded when Hilbert again intervened. They’d stopped him, that’s what was important, and it was ultimately thanks to Yza’s interference.
After the fight with Doug at the hideout, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the extreme measures he was willing to take to achieve their success. That was not the Team Plasma that Yza had signed up for; she hadn’t seen any way out of the situation, however. Not without risking the safety of her own team; the vision of the dancer’s umbreon held hostage by Scolipede had broken her, even if she hadn’t entirely realized it at the time.
The best plan she and the champions were able to come up with was to follow the original one. She’d return Ethan and Hilbert’s pokémon, in exchange for their help in stopping the ritual. That hadn’t gone well, of course, as Ghetsis had been able to summon a mindless Ho-Oh regardless. Their saving grace had been the handful of Sacred Ash that Yza had prevented the chandelure from roasting; that shred of self was enough for them to break through to Ho-Oh in the end, despite a brutal battle in the process. Ghetsis had managed to slip away in the aftermath of cleaning up the tower and the town.
“Hilbert’s told me the other side of the story,” Yza said to the elite four. “We were deceived, all of us. I’m not expecting any of you to accept that answer, but it’s the truth. I proved I changed sides when I released Hilbert and helped him fight back.”
“Helping clean the mess you made does not undo the damage caused prior,” responded Grimsley.
“However, we’ve agreed to lessen your punishment…” added Caitlyn, “…if you agree to cooperate with us.”
“Cooperate how?”
Hilbert stood up and walked forward, until he was close enough to touch. Yza tensed as he raised and arm… only to hold out his hand. “Tell us everything you know from your time in Team Plasma, and help us use your knowledge to help us track down Ghetsis.”
Meanwhile, a lone helicopter flew across the ocean, loud in the otherwise silent night sky.
“Curse them, curse them all,” Ghetsis muttered to himself. “How did he find us? How could he have known…?”
The grunt pilot turned to the leader. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, as though hesitant to interrupt Ghetsis’ angry rambling, until he finally went quiet, fuming to himself. “Sir… We’re approaching the coast of Unova. And… base has reported that they think they’ve found Kyurem.”
In essence, I wondered what Ghetsis was up to in the two years between BW and BW2, and combined it with another minor plot that I cut from my main fic. This version is the one submitted to the contest judges; content was cut to fit the 10k word limit, and feedback has not yet been implemented. When that does (eventually...) happen, the full version will be added for comparison. (Probably with a small segment detailing the differences.)
Anyways... That's all I got.
“Alright, listen up!” the mission leader bellowed, his voice echoing loudly in the silence against the walls of Mt. Moon. “You all know why we’re here, and here’s how it’s going to work. We march in from the east, lock down the city, and interrogate everyone. Everyone. We must succeed, for the team’s sake! For the sake of pokémon everywhere! Our future depends on our success!”
Instead of a rallying cheer, the only sound that followed was the dropping of water deep in the cave. They all knew the insanity of what was being proposed here. And yet… they’d done the unthinkable, and succeeded once before. They could do it again. They had to.
Among the assembled grunts, the voice of one girl suddenly rang out. “But sir,” she said, voice authoritative as she stepped forward and lowered her somewhat uncomfortable hood so her long flowing natural red hair could breathe. From the corner of her eye, she saw Doug looking her way, as if warning her to shut her mouth. She pretended not to notice. “We have only rumors. There’s no proof that this old guy has, or has ever had, the feather. We don’t know if he still lives here, or even if he’s still alive!”
“It’s not your place to question our orders, grunt Yza,” the leader sneered.
“It’s not your place to be giving them!” Yza shouted back. The grunt looked furious, but Yza continued. “You’re not in command.”
“I am in command, because I took command,” the black-haired grunt insisted. “I don’t recall seeing you – or anyone else – jumping at the opportunity!”
Yza grunted in response, crossing her arms. She would have, had she known the position were up for grabs. With all the sages either on the run or arrested back in Unova, there were few members left qualified to hold mission leadership positions, at least as far as Yza knew, but still… When she received the order to join this mission, she assumed new leaders had already been chosen – the Shadow Triad, perhaps. They seemed the most likely candidates.
When she arrived, however, she had not expected to be part of a gaggle of clueless grunts shipped off to Kanto with no clear leader, left to search blindly for an item that may or may not even exist from a man who may or may not still be alive.
And yet… here she was.
She was about to voice this when Doug – freaking Doug of all people! – cut her off. “Who cares who’s in charge? The mission was given by the higher-ups, regardless of who they are. We’re burning daylight. Let’s move!”
The lead grunt’s gaze drifted angrily to Doug, but he offered no comment save ordering the already-departing grunts to head out. Yza shivered as she followed the flow out of the chilly, zubat-infested cavern, ignoring Doug with all of her remaining strength.
It had taken almost an hour before Pewter’s police force had mobilized and begun to round up the team. In that time, Pewter’s gym leader, Brock, had taken down nearly half of them on his own. The defeated grunts had retreated to avoid being captured. The ones who ended up getting captured the quickest were those who had no pokémon to defend themselves with. They were only here to be interrogators, but they were easy pickings for the armed officers and their trained growlithe.
Yza had her hands full dealing with the gym leader’s kabutops, which, although it was decimating her pokémon, she couldn’t help but be amazed by. She’d never seen an ancient pokémon from back in her home region before and never expected to in her lifetime – despite the fact that Lord N had owned both a carracosta and an archeops – and here she was, facing down one of Kanto’s more dangerous revived fossils. Brock had trained this one well – it had attacks of a variety of types to take on several opponents with, all of which it was using to deal with Yza’s misdreavus and umbreon. Still, all things considered, her two pokémon alone were enough to keep the kabutops busy, which she couldn’t help but feel proud of. It only boosted her ego further when five other grunts’ pokémon were taken out all at once by Brock’s monstrous onix off to her right.
Just as the kabutops was about to land an attack on her fallen umbreon, a scolipede appeared out of nowhere, deflected the slash, and engaged the rock-type in a fresh fight. Misdreavus floated towards Umbreon to check on him, until the dark-type barked at her, reprimanding her for abandoning the battle. The ghost rolled her eyes and turned back to the fight, tossing a shadow ball at the kabutops.
Meanwhile, Doug ran up beside Yza. “We can leave,” he said. “The team is getting herded into this park. We’re being surrounded. We have to get out of here before we’re completely cut off. I’ve got what we need to know.”
“Where is it?” Yza asked, ignoring the urgency in his voice. Their mission came first. If he had the information, then he was the only one who needed to get away. It was everyone else’s duty to buy him time. That was what was expected – required even – of a grunt. Still, Yza didn’t particularly like the thought of being left behind to rot in a jail cell, so if she could learn the information too, she had an excuse to leave before the other grunts, too.
Doug rolled his eyes, but he answered anyway. “The bad news is that it isn’t here. It was given to the Johto champion on his visit here a few years ago. That’s the good news. We just need to find Ethan.”
As Umbreon lunged and tackled the kabutops, successfully distracting it from slashing an injured Misdreavus to ribbons, Yza turned back to her partner, disgust in her voice. “I suppose that should have been obvious. Who better to guard it?”
They were distracted by Scolipede’s scream as it was sent crashing into Umbreon. Misdreavus swooped in to keep the rock-type’s attention off the fallen pokémon, hoping to give them time to recover. Yza recalled Umbreon instead, and ordered a confuse ray from her ghost. As Kabutops began to sway on its’s feet, Yza called out to the team, “We have news! Everyone, retreat!”
Robbing Ethan’s house turned out to be easier than Yza expected. Not that she’d anticipated armed guards and tripwires, but she certainly didn’t expect to be able to just kick down the door and hold the champion’s mother hostage.
And yet, once again, here she was.
Doug demanded she summon her son, and she did so, clearly confused as to why they would be asking for the strongest trainer in the region.
What disturbed Yza, though, was the person who showed up with Ethan – the same boy who battled and defeated both Ghetsis and Lord N back in Unova, the very boy she herself had been defeated by numerous times – Hilbert. What was he doing here in Johto? How long had he been here? Was he on vacation after his ordeal, or was he tracking the team? Surely there was no way he could have known where Ghetsis had fled to… could there?
For his part, Hilbert didn’t seem surprised to see Team Plasma in this foreign region. Ethan, however, did, tossing an endless barrage of questions at Yza and the grunts she had assembled for this mission – the black-haired “leader” had been captured back in Pewter, and without her even trying, those who escaped had looked to her for instructions. She had yet to have the chance, but the first one she got, she fully planned to rub it in Doug’s greasy face.
Before she could respond to anything, Ethan would ask yet another question. At one point, he’d even asked why she hadn’t responded, apparently oblivious to the fact that he hadn’t stopped to take a breath and leave a pause where she could calmly explain their presence.
“Shut up!” she finally bellowed, startling Hilbert, who flinched at the sudden noise. Ethan simply stopped talking, his mouth hanging open and his finger in the air. “My god, first Elm and now you? Do you Johtoan people even know how to close your mouths?” She crossed her arms and fixed her gaze on Hilbert as she spoke, glaring him down with what she hoped was an intimidating scowl. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt here. All we want from you is that feather you got back in Kanto.”
“What feather? You mean the Rainbow Wing?” Ethan asked, obviously confused. “I don’t have it.” And with that, he whipped out a pokéball. Hilbert did the same, though not without casting a confused glance of his own at the Johto champion. Doug, however, was faster, and his scolipede was by his side before either champion had raised their arm.
Yza turned her head slightly to catch Doug’s eye with a sigh. “Search the house,” she said, raising her own pokéball. As the rest of the gathered team began to uproot the house, the three trainers tossed their pokéballs out. Yza was, at present, the team’s best battler, and even then, she wouldn’t likely last long against two champions at once, and they knew it.
Battling proved unnecessary, however, as Doug’s scolipede rammed Ethan’s surprised mother against a wall, one of the poisoned blades on its head pressed against her neck. Yza turned completely away from the champions in alarm. “Doug!” she cried. “What are you doing? I said we’re not here to hurt them!”
“Relax,” the blonde boy replied coolly. “This way, no one, neither person nor pokémon, gets hurt. So long as the champions behave themselves, that is. Can’t spring any surprises on us.” He glared at Ethan. “Now, would the both of you kindly recall your pokémon?”
Yza turned and watched as Ethan and Hilbert exchanged a glance, then recalled their typhlosion and samurott, respectively. She relaxed a bit, resenting herself for allowing this but finding herself unable to order her partner to stop. Instead, she simply pulled out a chair from the nearby kitchen table and sat down, crossing her legs, and ordering one of the grunts searching the fridge – or so she hoped that’s what he was doing in there – to toss her a drink. Doug, however, was not satisfied.
“I said recall them,” he demanded, eyes still locked on Ethan.
The Johto champion sighed. “Forget it, Xatu, he knows,” he said. Out of nowhere, a tall, green bird appeared next to Ethan – teleportation, Yza realized – and Ethan returned it to its ball. The psychic must have been released outside, waiting for a mental command to launch a sneak attack. The redhead grimaced at herself for not predicting this, and angrily took a sip of whatever it was she had been given. Some weaker brand of beer, she deduced. Not the lemonade she was suddenly craving, but it would do. She already felt calmer.
As the team continued to turn the house inside-out, Yza attempted to talk the information out of the champions, with a similar success rate.
“I already told you, I don’t have it!” Ethan insisted, waving his hands animatedly in front of him. “It, uh… vanished years ago when I summoned Ho-Oh at the Tin Tower!”
Yza’s eyes widened at this new piece of information Ethan unknowingly gifted, and she considered it for a moment. Is that what Ghetsis wanted? Was this feather necessary in some way to summon one of Johto’s legendary pokémon? She filed the information away for future contemplation. “It doesn’t work that way,” the Plasma member replied, though in all honestly, she had no idea. “We know you still have it. Just tell us where to find it, and we’ll leave.”
“Why d-do you want to know?” Hilbert countered. Yza told him to be quiet, that she wasn’t talking to him, but he continued anyway. Just like old times. Brat. “No, you’re going to tell me why. Nothing good can come of it if it involves you… Team Plasma. What are you planning to do with it?”
“What do you think?” Yza replied, shrugging. Then she jerked a thumb towards Ethan. “Summon Ho-Oh, I imagine. I don’t actually know,” she admitted casually. “I’m just following orders. The higher-ups don’t tell us what they’re really after anymore. Thanks for that, by the way.”
“Look,” Hilbert said, swallowing and taking a hesitant step forward. “Y-you know as well as I do that this won’t end well. What could you possibly want to summon Ho-Oh for? Surely you don’t think you can control it, or… or capture it, or… I mean, look what Ghetsis has done already! He betrayed you, all of you, and N.”
Yza, who had been struggling to remain calm while listening to Hilbert’s pleading, suddenly felt a seething rage and stood up, kicking over her chair in the process. “N betrayed us!” she bellowed. “How dare you?”
“No, he didn’t,” Hilbert answered, flinching back a step as if the force of her words were actually pushing him. “I-I know N. I know him better than you think. I probably know him better than anyone, even Ghetsis. He spoke to me. He opened his mind to me. He was used, too. Betrayed. He honestly believed that what he was doing was for the good of pokémon, that what he was doing was right. That may not matter to you, but-”
Yza took two steps forward and slapped Hilbert across the cheek. “How dare you?” she repeated. “You knew N? You dare to speak of him as if… as if… you were friends! Ghetsis did not betray us, N did! He was the one who challenged you to that pointless debate, that ridiculous battle of ideals! There was no need! We had what we wanted! We were in prime position to save the pokémon of Unova! But no, he threw it away for his own sake, his own selfish curiosity! I trusted him, and he threw away everything we had worked for when he challenged you!” Yza stood there fuming, hands balled into fists at her sides, breathing heavily.
It only infuriated her further when Hilbert calmly whispered, “No. You really don’t know what happened at the league that night, do you?” His voice slowly began to rise as he continued. “What lie did Ghetsis tell you? What did he say happened? Or did he simply escape custody and flee and not tell you anything until he summoned you all the way out here to blindly do his dirty work again?”
“He did not flee!” Yza screamed, pointing an accusing finger at Hilbert. “He was forced into hiding because of you! We all were! Why? Why are you constantly opposing us? Why do you insist on standing against us?! Why can’t you see the good we’re-”
“Good?” Hilbert asked calmly, his voice cutting right through Yza’s shouts and silencing her. “What good? Please, tell me. What did Ghetsis do in Unova? He planned to use the legendary dragon to rule. How is that for the good of anyone? He didn’t even tell you why he needs the Rainbow Wing. It’s a safe bet that he wants Ho-Oh for some reason. But why? What do you think he can do with that kind of power? Why did he want Zekrom?”
Yza was silent, angry, unable to form a coherent thought, let alone verbalize one. It was ridiculous! How could Hilbert actually believe this nonsense? Ghetsis had wanted Zekrom by his side because with the approval of the legendary dragon and its hero, he could validate his actions to the inhabitants of Unova. How else would they understand his dreams? Surely he wanted the same thing with Ho-Oh… right? With that kind of power on his side, he could…
He could… do what, exactly? Ho-Oh was a powerful legendary figure in Johto, for sure, but certainly not in the same respect that Zekrom was in Unova. Yza realized she had no answer for that at the moment, and that only made her angrier.
As Yza struggled internally, Doug kept an eye on Ethan, who had been suspiciously silent during this exchange. One glance, however, was enough to convince himself that Ethan was legitimately dumbfounded, watching the entire exchange cluelessly. Yza’s misdreavus meanwhile, floating by Ethan’s mother, was apparently feeding off the terrified woman’s fear. The woman didn’t seem to even notice the ghost behind her, grinning madly.
An uncomfortable silence had befallen the small area. Yza was still fuming, unable to form a proper sentence. Hilbert, likewise, remained silent now, allowing his words to sink in. Ethan kept looking from Hilbert to Yza, as if expecting one of them to spontaneously explode. Doug crossed his arms, getting impatient.
Another grunt stomped loudly down the stairs, interrupting the silence. He spotted Yza and Hilbert having a standoff and approached her warily. “Sir, it’s not here. We’ve searched everywhere. What do we do now?”
Yza snapped out of her thoughts, pushing them to the back of her mind to deal with later. If the item was not here, where else could it be? She considered the possibility that Ethan had left it for safe keeping somewhere… with professor Elm, maybe? But then again, Ethan didn’t look like the type to think that way. “What are you talking about? It has to be here! Somewhere we’d never think to look… check for loose floorboards. Taped under the kitchen table. Under his pillow!”
“Or on his person,” Doug said suddenly, his eyes locked on the Johto champion’s backpack.
Ethan’s face flushed bright red as he replied, “What? No, I told you, I don’t- Gah!”
“Frisk him, Shuppet,” Doug ordered, his own ghost appearing behind Ethan and searching him. It didn’t take long for the ghost to pick something from Ethan’s jacket and drop it into its trainer’s open palm. Hilbert grit his teeth, and Yza stomped over to look at the object.
Exactly as it was described, the feather in Doug’s palm glittered in the colors of the rainbow, unbent and undamaged. This is it? Yza thought to herself.
“It’s awfully small…” Doug said, as though reading her mind. She wondered for a moment if the shuppet had accidentally picked off one of the Johto champion’s gym badges.
“It doesn’t matter,” the redhead replied. “We’ve got what we came for. Everyone, pull out!”
“Please,” Hilbert whispered as Yza turned to leave. She stopped and half-turned her head back at him. “I’m telling you… this will not end well. Please, think about what I told you. Just… consider it.”
“If you’re done crying,” Yza replied, resuming her departure, “I’ve got a job to do.”
Their next mission was to infiltrate the library in Ecruteak, looking for information on how to summon Ho-Oh. Yza and Doug, dressed up as tourists, had found an article mentioning Ethan by name, so they knew it was the most recent sighting. Ethan’s interview, however, didn’t explain how the summoning ritual worked, so they resorted to sifting through Johto history books. They had to figure it out before word spread of their robbery. It would be far too obvious to be looking into Ho-Oh immediately after its associated item was lifted from the local champion.
Thankfully, it hadn’t taken them long. By the time they’d discovered what they needed, Ghetsis had already informed them that he’d acquired the Sacred Ash, another item important to the summoning ritual. There was only one more thing they required…
“I thought these were dancers?” Doug whined as his scolipede got roasted by a flamethrower. “Why the hell are they so strong?”
“They’re the guardians,” Yza cried back, frustrated, as her misdreavus went down to a thunderbolt. “I guess they’d have to be.” Why the hell did Ghetsis only send me this useless grunt army? He had to have known they’d be strong, and that common grunts wouldn’t stand a chance. Even as she thought it, four of her accomplices’ pokémon were bashed into each other, courtesy of one of the dancer’s espeon. Then, in the blink of an eye, another two were shot down with a psybeam. Useless, the lot of them.
The dancers were apparently an important part of the summoning ritual, and were required in order to make Ho-Oh revive, together with the Rainbow Wing. Yza had yet to figure out how that worked, as the kimoko girls has refused to cooperate. Yza and the rest of the team had no choice but to battle them to make them agree. So far, they weren’t having much success.
This is ridiculous, she thought to herself, watching a vaporeon turn itself into water and allow three separate attacks to fly straight through it harmlessly. There’re only five trainers, each with a single pokémon, and they’re wiping us out five at a time. We’ll be lucky to take down three of them before we’re all beaten. We need to start battling smarter.
“Umbreon!” Yza cried out. The dark-type she was watching completely ignored her, though, instead spraying a noxious goop over a wave of incoming liepard. Oops. Not my umbreon.
She turned to survey the room, and finally found her umbreon tussling with the jolteon who had attacked Misdreavus. “Umbreon, forget that one, go for the espeon! It can’t touch you!”
Her dark-type barked a reply and kicked the jolteon in the face, giving it enough time to scramble away towards the purple pokémon instead. Doug’s palpitoad leapt over to engage the jolteon instead, successfully drawing its attention with a glob of mud to the face.
Yza took command of the entire group at that point. She sent the handful of krokorok in the room to help deal with the jolteon, while directing the sandile to the espeon, figuring her umbreon would require less help. Doug, like many of the other grunts, looked rather angry at having their pokémon ordered around by someone else, but they had no more time for stupidity. It had only taken one moronic grunt sending out his sewaddle against the flareon right at the start for Yza to realize that they’d be fighting an uphill battle.
Once they began playing to type advantages, the team overall was doing a little better, although far from being successful. Yza was making sure her side was fighting the correct targets, but the kimono girls were also doing their best to have their pokémon ignore their attackers and focus on the ones they could damage. The result was many blocked attacks and a lot of moving around.
Yza had to duck as an umbreon – she wasn’t sure if it was hers or not – leaped over her head, followed by a swarm of sewaddle and swadloon, swinging from their silk like spinarak-man. As soon as she righted, she was bowled over by a pansear as it tried to escape the vaporeon’s water attacks. Yza managed to grab the water pokémon by the tail, successfully halting its chase, but making her the target instead. She was thoroughly soaked as a result, and the vaporeon easily slipped out of her grasp as she fell to the ground.
As she cursed and tried to stand, she slipped and bashed her head into a boldore. The offending pokémon turned to glance at her, and waited patiently while she put a hand on its side, using it to balance as she stood up once again.
And came face to face with Hilbert.
“What the…? What are you doing here?”
“Stopping you!” Hilbert responded. “You didn’t even think about what I said to you back in New Bark, did you?”
Yza glared back at him, feeling annoyingly pathetic and soggy, dripping all over from the vaporeon’s attack. She glanced down to make sure her Team Plasma uniform wasn’t see-through. “Of course not.”
“Well, you should!” Hilbert shouted at her over the roar of a typhlosion. So, Ethan had to be here somewhere, too.
“Listen, I don’t have time for you to try and convert me,” Yza said, turning around. Hilbert reached for her and grabbed her upper arm, spinning her back in his direction. He immediately looked shocked with himself and let her go, but refused to look away.
“Listen, we-”
“That’s enough! Everyone, freeze!” shouted a voice over the commotion. Yza turned to find the source. She found Doug, holding a knife to the throat of one of the dancers. His scolipede had one of the umbreon pinned to the wall, also by the throat, using the blade-like horn on its head.
Yza immediately thought it was hers, until she spotted her umbreon doing its best to sit on top of the espeon and hold it in place. Satisfied, she returned her attention to where it needed to be. “Doug, what the hell are you doing?”
“Winning this battle,” he replied, looking at her angrily. She knew what he was thinking. They were already on the losing side. Now, with two champions here, they were hopelessly outmatched. It was the same tactic he’d used on Ethan’s mother. Yza was furious – no one was supposed to be hurt! – but she couldn’t see a winning move, either. Without a hostage or two, they would all eventually be defeated and captured, or escape and have to face Ghetsis with a failure, in which case they’d probably be better off just surrendering here and now. Doug was doing what he thought was necessary to ensure his team’s goals.
“Killing me will solve nothing,” the dancer in his grip choked out. She wasn’t shaking or even struggling. She just stood there, eyes open with a passive expression, staring straight ahead. Doug turned towards the girl in his grasp.
“Of course not,” he replied. “I assume we need you all for the ritual. And I don’t expect any of you would break under the torture of a few bloody cuts.” He glanced over at his scolipede and nodded. “But I doubt we have a use for your pokémon.”
“Wai-”
“Breee!” the umbreon cried out as the blade was pushed into its throat.
There were gasps from around the room, not just from the other dancers. Yza heard several grunts cover their mouths as well, and Hilbert behind her was easy to hear. She couldn’t be sure she didn’t gasp herself. Team Plasma was fighting for pokémon… what was Doug thinking?
The captured dancer finally showed some expression, her eyes wide with concern, as her pokémon kicked the air violently. Doug nodded again and his pokémon backed off a bit, allowing the dark-type to finally catch a breath. The blade had looked quite painful and drawn blood, but it didn’t appear the umbreon were otherwise in any serious danger. It stopped struggling as soon as it could breathe.
Doug shoved the dancer to the floor. “You four will recall your pokémon, and then you will hand over all of your pokéballs to our leader. No, not you,” he added to the dancer he just shoved. “The umbreon will stay where it is until the others are withdrawn. You too, champions.”
As the other dancers reluctantly returned their pokémon (there was a shout in the background that could only be Ethan, crying, “This is so unfair!”), Hilbert stepped up beside Yza and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Is that what you want to be fighting for?”
She turned sharply to face him, but she found she had nothing to say. All she could think of was the imaginary scenario of her own umbreon pinned to that wall, instead.
“That’s the second time you’ve threated someone now! It needs to stop!”
“I was doing what I had to do!”
“That doesn’t make it okay! We only threaten people who abuse pokémon, not as a means of coercion!”
“And where would that have gotten us? We’d all be like them!” Doug gestured to the seven tied-up humans – the five kimono girls, Ethan, and Hilbert. “We’d all be captured and imprisoned and our mission would be over. I did what I had to do, and because of that, we are still on track. We succeeded. We have what we need.”
“You don’t get to make those decisions!” Yza screamed back at him.
“Now I do!” Doug shouted back. He pointed a finger directly in her face. “I didn’t challenge you when that jackass Edgar got himself captured in Pewter. I thought you knew how to be a leader. But look at how this mission has gone so far! Everything we’ve accomplished has been, ultimately, through me! The Rainbow Wing, the Sacred Ash, and now the ritual components. And we’ve even subdued two champions! Do you not realize what I’ve done here?”
“Do you?” Yza shot back. She was about to point out that Ghetsis had handled the Sacred Ash with his own grunts, but that was a weak argument.
Doug stared, waiting… and then laughed when he realized that was her only counter. “I realize you’re no leader. I realize you’ve been consorting with the enemy.”
“What are you–”
“Him,” Doug gestured, again, to the prisoners, pointing at Hilbert. “You’ve been talking and talking and talking. That’s how you’ve tried to solve everything so far. And each time, you’ve failed. You’ve let him get into your head! You’ve forgotten why we’re doing this!”
“Why are we doing this?” Yza demanded angrily. “You’re right, I don’t know. Do you? Have our leaders graced you with their grand plans without my knowledge?”
“We are creating a better world for pokémon and humans alike!”
“By threatening to kill them if they don’t obey us?”
“No! By liberating pokémon from people. That has always been Team Plasma’s goal. And it was yours, once upon a time, when I recruited you. I’d ask what happened to you, but I already know. That fool over there poisoned your mind. You lost faith in Ghetsis, not just in N, when he lost that battle, and now he’s been poisoning you with traitorous thoughts ever since we’ve been here. And until I can trust that you won’t turn us all in, I’m going to be in charge around here.”
Yza was not about to let that happen. “Good luck communicating with Ghetsis, then. He is expecting me, and only I know how to reach him. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and report my success.”
As she stormed away, Yza wondered just what had gotten into her so suddenly. But as she entered the hideout’s command room and spotted her umbreon, bandaged and sleeping, she felt a knot in her stomach. She looked back towards the captive champions… Maybe Ghetsis could wait a few more minutes.
“Everyone, march! Ghetsis awaits us at the top of this tower!”
As it turned out, their leader was not interested in how the mission succeeded, only that it had. And so, until it was accomplished, Yza retained control over the grunts, much to Doug’s fury. And now here they were, marching all of their prisoners up to the top of the Tin Tower, where Ghetsis awaited them with the Sacred Ash, ready to put his new plan into action.
Yza had been surprised that the three guards of the tower let them pass without so much as a warning. Perhaps they knew that this party was on its way due to Ghetsis’s group which had already passed them, or perhaps they saw the captured kimono girls and decided they were no match. Either way, the team walked right by them and proceeded to the top of the tower.
“Ah, welcome, welcome!” Ghetsis exclaimed as the party approached. He spotted Hilbert among the prisoners. “Well, well, finally! The rat who foiled my last great plan. Finally, you are where you belong.”
The top floor of the tower was exposed to the night sky. Ghetsis stood across from them, on the elevated platform in the room’s center, partially obscured behind a small pillar. On top of that pillar, Yza saw a small pile of dust – what she assumed must be the Sacred Ash that would become Ho-Oh. She and the grunts took their positions. A handful of grunts stood by the two champions, in case they needed to be guarded. The kimono girls were untied and directed to take whatever positions they required for their ritual. The rest of the grunts filed around the pillar in the center of the platform.
This was it. The moment they had been planning for, their reason for coming to Johto, was about to occur. Despite her doubts, Yza couldn’t help but feel excited. Ghetsis was about to perform one of his famous speeches. She had not been present for the one in Unova. This time, she would see it first-hand.
“People, listen well! I believe it is about time we get started-”
“Save it, Ghetsis,” Hilbert bellowed. Still managing to ruin things, even as a prisoner. “No one cares what you have to say. You gave yourself away back at the Unova pokémon league. There’s no one here that you need to put on a show for, or prove yourself to, or whatever it is you think the purpose of those speeches is.”
Ghetsis looked down at him disapprovingly. “Someone sure is impatient. What of procedures, boy? After how you spoiled my last performance, I think it prudent to make sure this one flows smoothly.”
Hilbert shrugged. “Fine, do whatever you want. I just figured you’d want to start this ritual before that nasty looking storm gets here and makes all that ash soggy. Good luck reviving it then.”
Yza turned to look beyond the tower at the horizon, where she indeed did notice a large cloud blotting out much of the night sky, complete with the occasional lightning flash. Ghetsis would have to speed things up if he wanted to complete the summoning before the downpour started. Not that she actually expected a little water to stop the summoning, but being on top of the tower in that lightning…
For his part, Ghetsis looked between the pillar of ash and the storm cloud. Yza guessed he was probably trying to decide whether or not the storm actually could pose a risk to the summoning ritual or not; surprisingly for someone who spoke as often as he did, he had yet to respond to Hilbert, and looked as though he weren’t sure what to say. Nor did any of the grunts, but that was nothing new.
Finally, he turned to the pillar and said, “Very well. Girls, dance. Do whatever it is you do.”
And with that, he stuffed the Rainbow Wing into the pile of Sacred Ash.
“Now!” came a sudden scream and a flash of light… then, suddenly, everything was in chaos. A samurott had appeared, and immediately cut Hilbert and Ethan free while simultaneously blasting back their guards. Ethan had out his typhlosion and xatu and several other pokémon that Yza could not identify. She wondered why Hilbert didn’t send out any more of his, but it was a moot point.
As the grunts all around them let out pokémon to combat the champions and the kimono girls looked on in surprise, Yza darted up to the platform beside Ghetsis. She grabbed two fistfuls of the ash, and Ghetsis, upon seeing her there, caught her wrist. “And just what do you think you’re doing?”
“The prisoners are free. We need to gather up the Sacred Ash and the Rainbow Wing before they can steal them back!”
“You propose to flee at this pathetic excuse of an inconvenience? No,” Ghetsis argued, tightening his grip on her wrist. “Put it back. We are going to continue. Dancers! Start, now!”
As Yza dropped one handful of ash back on the pillar with the feather, the kimono girls looked at each other with doubt, but resigned themselves to performing their duties. Ethan continued barking orders at his pokémon, trying to reach the platform, while the other grunts held them off. Curiously, Hilbert did not move from his original position, his samurott only fighting back the grunts who came too close.
And then it happened. The as the dancers danced, the Rainbow Wing begun to glow. And after a few seconds, the entire pile did, too. Ghetsis leered at the ash with a laugh and withdrew a pokéball from his gaudy robes.
“Chandelure, now! Inferno!”
“What?” Hilbert screamed, and suddenly, he wanted to move. More grunts blocked his path as he and his samurott attempted to start forwards. Yza, meanwhile, stared in shock up at the fire-type pokémon Ghetsis has released. What was he doing?
The ghost-type gleefully spewed a large column of indigo fire on top of the glowing Sacred Ash. A sound like that of some sort of bird crying out was heard, loud even over the unnatural flames, and Yza swore it was coming from the Sacred Ash itself.
And then she realized what Ghetsis was trying to do.
“Chandelure’s fire consumes souls,” she said aloud. Ghetsis, who still had hold of one of her wrists, looked sideways at her. “You’re trying to revive Ho-Oh without a soul!”
“Yes, my dear, very good!” he laughed. “My failure in Unova taught me one important lesson. I can not rely on other living beings with minds of their own to do my work for me. My influence can obviously only extend so far. But this time… with this, a pokémon without a soul… it will be completely unable to resist my commands! Why do I need Reshiram or Zekrom, when I can have a personalized weapon at my disposal?”
Yza suddenly made a mental connection. That bird-like wail she had heard coming from the Inferno… She’d been assuming this entire time that the Sacred Ash itself was Ho-Oh, and she still held a portion of that in her hand…
There was the only way she could see any sort of hope for this situation.
As soon as the chandelure’s fire attack stopped, the ash now glowing a sinister shade of violet, Yza reached out and added her other, untainted fistful back into the pile.
“What’s this?” Ghetsis demanded. “I told you to put it all back! Chandelure, burn it again, quickly!”
But when they both looked up, the chandelure was no longer there. It didn’t take long to find it, engaged in battle with some sort of green and yellow frog – one of Ethan’s pokémon. Yza wrenched her wrist out of Ghetsis’s grasp and darted towards Hilbert and his samurott.
“Do I have to do everything myself?” Ghetsis demanded, throwing down a handful of pokéballs. Yza turned upon reaching Hilbert to see a seismitoad, a cofagrigus, and a hydreigon, all lunging towards the green frog.
Yza turned back to Hilbert. “We have to take down that chandelure,” she told him, earning a few stunned gasps from the grunts he had been battling. “That’s how he plans to control your legendary. It’s part ghost-type. Its fire does something to souls.”
Hilbert just nodded, taking her explanation at face value, but she decided she’d better help anyway, just to get the point across that she was on his side.
“Let’s go!” she cried, throwing her pokéballs as close to the frog as she could. Umbreon and Misdreavus appeared just in time to block an attack from one of Ghetsis’s pokémon – Yza couldn’t tell what it was or which one used it in the chaos. Hilbert had also thrown a pokéball in that direction, and she recognized the blue pokémon as the same Sawk she’d lost to a few times back in Unova. It wasted no time in backing the hydreigon from the group, taking it on one-on-one.
Yza wondered why he didn’t use something else; strong as Sawk was, it couldn’t hurt a ghost – and then it turned and stomped on the ground, and several rocks shot up from out of nowhere below it and skewered the chandelure, while Umbreon held it in place with his teeth.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” came a voice that Yza recognized instantly.
“I’m stopping this before it gets out of control,” she shot back, then ran forwards and tackled Doug to the ground. He wasn’t expecting it, and she was able to get in a few punches before she was thrown off him. He seemed too injured to try to get back up, cradling what was likely a broken nose.
And then the entire area lit up violet. All eyes around were drawn to the center pillar, where a beam of fiery purple light shot upwards into the clouds. (Yza realized the storm was right on top of them now, but she hadn’t noticed the lightning, probably due to all the pokémon attacks.) A few moments passed and the beam faded, only to be replaced by a screeching sound from the storm clouds above – the same bird-like cry that had come from the ash not too long ago.
Yza looked to the pillar – the ash was gone.
And then her attention was drawn upwards again as a giant figure slowly floated down out of the clouds, flapping massive multi-colored wings and looking quite violent for a being without a soul. That was it, then. They hadn’t brought down the chandelure, but it didn’t matter in the end, anyway.
Ghetsis laughed and shouted, “Ahaha! Not even stealing the ash could stop this! With this reborn legendary, I will now achieve my – I mean, Team Plasma’s – ultimate goal!”
Back in Unova, Yza stood silently in the center of the League HQ. Her role in stopping Ghetsis was likely the only reason she’d been allowed to see them rather than immediately being detained; though, having the current champion vouch for her probably didn’t hurt, either.
“I’ll try to ease them up, but I don’t think they’re going to want to be as lenient as I will,” Hilbert had warned her.
He hadn’t been kidding. None of them were happy about the damage done to Unova’s relation with Johto, but Hilbert had tried to assure them that he and Ethan could repair it. Marshall in particular was not pleased that Ghetsis had escaped again, but conceded when Hilbert again intervened. They’d stopped him, that’s what was important, and it was ultimately thanks to Yza’s interference.
After the fight with Doug at the hideout, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the extreme measures he was willing to take to achieve their success. That was not the Team Plasma that Yza had signed up for; she hadn’t seen any way out of the situation, however. Not without risking the safety of her own team; the vision of the dancer’s umbreon held hostage by Scolipede had broken her, even if she hadn’t entirely realized it at the time.
The best plan she and the champions were able to come up with was to follow the original one. She’d return Ethan and Hilbert’s pokémon, in exchange for their help in stopping the ritual. That hadn’t gone well, of course, as Ghetsis had been able to summon a mindless Ho-Oh regardless. Their saving grace had been the handful of Sacred Ash that Yza had prevented the chandelure from roasting; that shred of self was enough for them to break through to Ho-Oh in the end, despite a brutal battle in the process. Ghetsis had managed to slip away in the aftermath of cleaning up the tower and the town.
“Hilbert’s told me the other side of the story,” Yza said to the elite four. “We were deceived, all of us. I’m not expecting any of you to accept that answer, but it’s the truth. I proved I changed sides when I released Hilbert and helped him fight back.”
“Helping clean the mess you made does not undo the damage caused prior,” responded Grimsley.
“However, we’ve agreed to lessen your punishment…” added Caitlyn, “…if you agree to cooperate with us.”
“Cooperate how?”
Hilbert stood up and walked forward, until he was close enough to touch. Yza tensed as he raised and arm… only to hold out his hand. “Tell us everything you know from your time in Team Plasma, and help us use your knowledge to help us track down Ghetsis.”
Meanwhile, a lone helicopter flew across the ocean, loud in the otherwise silent night sky.
“Curse them, curse them all,” Ghetsis muttered to himself. “How did he find us? How could he have known…?”
The grunt pilot turned to the leader. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, as though hesitant to interrupt Ghetsis’ angry rambling, until he finally went quiet, fuming to himself. “Sir… We’re approaching the coast of Unova. And… base has reported that they think they’ve found Kyurem.”
