Metchi tugged at the skirt of the Galactic uniform one last time, all the while cursing every single deity she could think of.

The damned thing didn't fit right; the boots were too small and the waist too slim on her. And worst of all the grey and white went horribly with the bright pink of her hair. She looked like a walking strawberry lollipop.

"I forgot how much I hate this thing," she told the handheld mirror, eyelid twitching. "And of course the guys get pants while we get fucking tights."

"Stop whining. We need to get this over with before the sun goes up."

She stared at the empty space behind her with enough contempt to paralyze an Aggron. Still, Azelf was right. There was a precious time limit she needed to stick to.

North past the empty streets of Solaceon she went, her only company that of the occasional flocks of Murkrow flying above. She made sure to stay as close to the walls as she could, knowing well that nothing good could come from someone seeing her in a Team Galactic uniform.

The house was at the end of a narrow path between two buildings, obscured from almost every angle by rock and concrete. She stopped before the door and simply stood there, frozen. Sweat ran down her forehead.

"This will be easy. Just get in character."

Right, easy for Azelf to say. Even though the task ahead was infinitely easier than sneaking up on a Galactic grunt and stealing her uniform, she dreaded this much more.

She knocked on the door, tentatively at first and then with more force once she remembered the role she had to play. Twenty seconds of her listening to her heartbeat went by, and then someone answered. The face that appeared through the crack of the door was that of an old man, his hair the color of ash. Heavy bags adorned his eyes.

"Who…" His croaky voice became high pitched as she came into view. "G-Galactic! What are you…?"

Metchi raised her palm and the old man ceased to speak, as if that gesture alone had stolen the air from his lungs. Taking a deep breath, she donned herself in the mantle of those she'd once worked for.

"Professor Willow, right?" She fell into a low, raspy voice which made the man's shoulders tense up. "I was sent here by Charon and Jupiter to inspect the progress of your… investigation."

A lie, of course. She had absolutely no idea what kind of research this man was currently doing for Team Galactic, which made it pretty lousy as far as leads went. Still, it was the only one they had and they couldn't simply ignore it.

"I…" Willow looked down, unable to meet the girl's eyes. "Please, tell them that my experiments have been going well. I still don't have a clear model for a prototype but if you give me just a bit more time…"

"I'm afraid that's not possible," she said. "We're moving toward the next step of our plan and we need the prototype now."

She saw the man's shoulders shake under her words, as if she were delivering a death sentence. Maybe she was. After all, she didn't know what Team Galactic had done to convince a scientist of Willow's caliber to help them out. Still, she was firing blindly and she knew that. The prototype he was talking about could be anything as far as she knew, and since the man didn't have it with him she needed to get creative if she was to get any information out of him.

"As an example of Team Galactic's generosity…" she continued, trying her best not to puke from the words coming out of her mouth. "We will be content if you give us a blueprint of the project. Charon and Jupiter will take care of the rest themselves."

Willow's eyes opened like plates. "B-but that's my research! You can't just…!"

He stopped as soon as the gold of her eyes fell on him. The door creaked behind him as he took a desperate step back.

"You do remember our deal, don't you?" she asked. "I'm sure you wouldn't want anyone to get hurt because of your insolence."

A multitude of expressions flew through the man's face. Fear, desperation, hatred… she couldn't help but wonder what exactly had they threatened this old man with. What she was taking advantage of…

Without saying another word he turned around and disappeared into the hallway leading towards his home, feet stomping the ground. She stood in front of the door, not daring to move or look away, knowing that the slightest change could break the facade she'd put on.

He came back with a brown paper folder in his hands. He stared at it and then at her for what seemed like an eternity before handing it over. She didn't show any emotion as she grabbed it and looked inside, finding a multitude of miscellaneous papers and blueprints.

Bingo.

"You won't win."

His words caught her off guard, and for a second she dropped the cold expression she'd been wearing as she looked at him.

"Someone will stop you," he whispered. "I know what you lot are planning. You might threaten me and my family all you like, but the world won't stand by and watch as you put something so horrible into motion."

A dry smile formed on her lips.

"We'll see about that," she whispered, before turning around and walking away.

She didn't stop until she was at the northern edge of the city, close to one of the many parks sprinkled around town. This particular one was densely covered with a multitude of thick trees that worked wonders to hide things such as her backpack and her clothes.

Once it was off her body, she made sure to throw the Galactic uniform to the ground and stomp on it for good measure before changing into her regular outfit. Then, as usual, she sat against one of the trees and rested her head on the trunk, letting out a deep sigh.

"I can't believe I just did that," she told the leaves above. "Guess I'm not going to heaven anytime soon."

"It had to be done. We now have an important lead we can use against Team Galactic."

She nodded weakly and looked down at the dossier. Whatever they were trying to develop, whatever they needed all that energy for… it had to be somewhere within those blueprints.

Still, she was too tired to start deciphering them now. That could wait until she got a few hours of sleep and hopefully something to eat.

"Alright, let's hide the uniform somewhere and-"

A beeping noise came from the set of discarded clothes at her feet, startling her enough to make her head clash against the trunk of the tree.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Ah, shit!"

She leaned forward and desperately clawed at the thing looking for whatever was making that sound, knowing full well it could attract all kinds of undesired attention. Finally she found it; a small, red device hidden under the right sleeve of the uniform. It looked like a modified version of a Pokétch.

"Says here that it's an important message to all grunts, from Saturn himself…" She read aloud the tiny words that danced in the screen. "Should I…?"

"I doubt it would hurt to read it."

She nodded and pressed the O button on the right of the device. Even more words scrolled by as she tried to read them under her breath.

"Attention all grunts; I'm sending you a file containing a photo of someone whom the boss has deemed dangerous enough for us to capture…" she whispered, furrowing her brow. "It is theorized that this person is somewhere around Solaceon or Veilstone. If you come across her you must capture her alive and bring her to the base for processing."

She couldn't help but feel bad for the poor sod who'd gotten on the bad side of Team Galactic to warrant such a response from them. Whoever they were, they had something in common at least.

Her finger lazily pressed another button to open the image attached. A face appeared on the screen, and a gasp escaped her lips.

"Oh…"

She'd recognize that stupid hat and those green eyes anywhere. Her mouth hung open in disbelief as Inyssa stared at her from the other side of the device.

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The first thing Barry saw when they came back to the bridge was his Kadabra laying against one of the stone pillars, sleeping soundly as if nothing was wrong. Which, he remembered, was the exact opposite of what he'd been instructed to do.

"Lazy sonuva…"

At least the egg seemed to be cozy enough, still fully draped in his jacket. He knew he couldn't take it back so he simply grabbed his backpack and placed it under Niss' head as he lay her down on the floor.

Uncertainty filled him as he stood there, observing his friend carefully. She looked bad, he didn't need to be a detective to figure that one out. With every minute that passed her skin turned paler, and her muttering hadn't stopped since they had made a break for it a few minutes ago. Her clothes were completely soaked and thick tufts of hair covered most of her face.

"Prii!"

Pedri kneeled in front of the girl and pointed at her forehead, making a strange gesture with his fin. Barry narrowed his eyes, trying to force his brain to think through the cold that made his teeth clash against each other.

"R-right! I should probably check her temperature."

He dried his hands with one of the sleeves of his shirt and put his right on top of Niss' forehead. His heart dropped. Hot, way too hot for what he imagined her skin should feel like.

"No, no..." He took one of his hands to his hair, eyes opened wide and anxiety piercing through his stomach. "Please tell me this is just a cold…"

Pedri observed as his trainer got up and walked around Inyssa, grabbing his hair and looking like something was just about to start crawling under his skin.

"Her clothes are all wet too!" he reasoned, voice high pitched. "And we don't have anything to make a fire anymore! If she's got a fever we can't wait out the storm, we gotta take her to Veilstone now!"

He stopped suddenly and almost bounced off his feet. His wet blonde hair seemed to gain some of its spikiness back as an idea formed in his mind.

"Kitsune!" He turned towards his Kadabra, hands curled into fists. "Kitsune, wake up!"

The psychic Pokemon reluctantly opened his eyes and used them to deliver a very clear What the hell do you want? to his trainer.

"You're psychic, right?" he asked full of hope, and received a look of Yeah no shit in return. "Can you make like… barriers and stuff? Could you make one big enough for all of us to protect us from the rain? One that lasted 'til we got to Veilstone?"

Kitsune narrowed his eyes and his mustache twitched in annoyance. After a few seconds of consideration he made a gesture that Barry roughly understood as Maybe, maybe not.

He decided that was good enough.

"Alright! Pedri, help me carry her! And you Kitsune take the egg and form a barrier over us!"

With the help of his starter he managed to get the girl on her feet, as unresponsive as she was, and turned around to the four worried Pokemon staring at them from across the bridge.

He tried his best to smile with confidence. "You all need to get back to your Pokeballs! You're hurt and you can trust us to get Niss safely to Veilstone."

There was no doubt on their part. Shadi, Kuro, Bret and Steven moved towards him as if they hadn't heard him at all and positioned themselves around their trainer, eyes full of determination. The Staravia grabbed the free part of her arms with his talons and extended his wings over her head, ready to shield her from the rain if the barrier were to falter.

"Should've expected that," he sighed, unable to hide his smile. "Come on, before the storm gets any worse."

----------------------------------------

Inyssa wasn't used to remembering her dreams, especially when they were this vivid.

An endless, stark white stood before her. She couldn't feel her body. Couldn't feel anything except a light breeze which pleasantly filled her lungs without her needing to breathe.

She tried to take a step forward. The floor beneath her feet rippled as if she were standing on top of water, which seemed to be the case. The expanding lines under her traveled outwards until they were lost on what she assumed was the horizon. No way to tell since everything was the same color.

Where am I?

She began walking in a direction. Couldn't really tell which one. Everything was quiet. Too quiet. She couldn't stand it.

What was I doing?

She figured out how to close her eyes, and when she opened them again the landscape changed. Enormous clouds of mist rolled in from every direction like waterfalls, swallowing the world. Through the thickness of the mists, she noticed a few white gleams moving in set patterns. They were small and... square? Kind of like mirrors.

Yet the more she blinked, the more things stayed the sme. Her mind didn't seem happy to comply when she tried focus her sight on the mirrors. Every time she thought she had seen something in them, she would immediately forget what it was.

Someone spoke behind her.

"It won't be for long…"

It was as though someone touched her with a livewire. All feeling came back to her limbs and she turned around so fast her neck clicked.

Standing in front of the endless landscape was Shadi, looking at her with those faded green eyes of hers.

Even through the hazy feeling of a dream Inyssa's eyes stung. Her body stood frozen as she took in every last detail of her. Her skin was as pale as hers, though a bit more lively. Her long, dark hair was tied in a ponytail that reached to her hips, with a single tuft falling to the middle of her angular face.

Her smile was exactly the same as she remembered it. A bit curved and awkward. A bit out of place in the geometry of her face. Beautiful.

"Shadi…"

Her whisper alone managed to make a ripple in the water beneath them, carrying so much desperation that Inyssa felt herself about to break into a million pieces.

Shadi's smile widened, and she lowered herself to meet her sister's eyes.

"I promise I'll be back as soon as I beat the Champion." She spoke with a somber tone, trying to maintain her smile. "Don't worry; I'll have my friends with me. Nothing's gonna happen to us."

Inyssa couldn't help but narrow her eyes at her sister's words. Beat… the champion? What was she talking about? And why did she have to lean down so much to meet her eyes? She wasn't that short…

"I'm... sorry about what I did. I promise I'll atone for it."

A gasp got caught on her throat as realization hit her. She remembered those words. How could she not? They'd been the last ones she ever heard coming from her.

Her gaze veered down towards an old, black dress that covered her body, adorned with a white collar and pink skirt. The outfit she wore that day...

So this is…

"Take care, will you?" Shadi's whisper caught her off guard, although not as much as the feeling of her hand on top of her shoulder. "And make sure to keep training and get stronger. That's all that matters. I trust you."

She straightened up and showed her one last smile before turning around. Panic filled Inyssa's mind as she saw her walk away, and everything around her including the water started waving and melting in accordance with the beating of her heart. She tried to scream, tried to beg her sister to stay with her, to not abandon her again. But no matter how much strength she put behind them the words would not leave her throat.

She tried to run but her legs felt glued to the water. She was stuck watching Shadi walk away without any way to prevent it.

Then. Her sister stopped just before disappearing into the horizon, and turned around. Even though she was barely a smudge at that distance Inyssa could feel Shadi's eyes on her, and her voice reached her as if they were next to each other.

"Inyssa, listen to me." Her tone became more ragged and heavy, filled with a sense of urgency. "I can't keep them at bay for much longer. They're... scratching, biting at the edges, and not even the mist…"

Confusion danced around her like mist as she tried to decipher what she'd just heard. Shadi hadn't said those things back then, had she?

"Soon... soon the memories will come rushing back, one by one. Please, be ready. Be strong. It'll be hard, it'll be painful but... you have to endure it. I know you can. And please..."

Inyssa barely had time to think before she felt herself falling. Everything turned dark as the water swallowed her and dragged her deep into what seemed like an ocean of black. She tried to claw her way out desperately but her limbs would barely move and water started filling her lungs.

In the middle of that chaos, she heard Shadi one last time.

"Please, don't trust me if you see me again. I love you."