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[Pokémon] Spring's Revenge

Psychic*Absol

Psychic Student
2,231
Posts
19
Years
*hides from angry readers* >.< Not my fault! I had this chapter ready weeks ago, but again, beta-reading took a bit longer than expected...*cough*
Anyway, next chapter. 0=)
@Beta-Reader: Next time you try to insert yourself into the story without my permission, do it a bit more subtle. XD!

6. Chapter, Part 1: Soberness

The first thing she became aware of was the melodic twitter of a bird directly in front of her room's balcony, enjoying the fresh spring air. Even before opening her eyes, she saw the scenery in her mind: the little Pidgey bending its head to peer into the unexposed room, jumping on the balcony's grille back and forth, not brave enough to fly inside. She could feel the slight breeze on her bare legs, indicating that someone had opened the windows while she had been sleeping. The scents of several different flowers were in the air, an amazing cocktail of nature's gracefulness.

Finally, the psychic opened her eyes, sighing as she did so. The ceiling of her room was a mixture of shadows bathing it into a crème-like brown colour, with other patches shining in a bright white, being touched by the rays of sunlight shining through the windows. The curtains rustled.

Carefully, Sabrina tried to sit up, but a blurry pain in the back of her mind stopped her. Letting out a soft groan, she fell back again, touching her forehead. She had no fever, thankfully, but her head ached. A lot. 'Great, just great.'

After a short moment of steadying her senses, she opened her eyes again, scanning her room. The door to the balcony was in fact opened. The Pidgey had flown away, probably scared by her movements. And on her right side...Sabrina smiled widely. Will was sleeping in the swivel chair in front of the desk, yet he had turned it around to face her. The whole night. He was so...sweet.

She kept staring at him, giggling when she heard his snore. A quick glance at the clock told her that it was already 10 am. She was surprised that she was already awake again after only six hours of sleep, but she had never been a late-riser. Will, on the other hand....

Sabrina closed her eyes as she slowly stood up, careful not to wake him up and not to strain her aching head too much. He had all the right to sleep as long as wanted, as after all, all the worry he had been through yesterday had probably stressed his nerves just as much as hers were after the drinks.

Looking around, the gym leader was startled for a second when she noticed that she wasn't wearing the same clothes as the last evening anymore, yet relaxed just as quickly when she realized that it was only her blazer that was missing. And her shoes, of course. Sabrina had to giggle again. It was...surprising, almost unbelievable that she didn't mind a man undressing her, or that she didn't strangle him to death for committing that crime. Yet with Will, everything was different. Quite different. There was an intimacy between them that could almost not be real anymore. They had only been together for about a month, and yet it was as if they had known each other for a lifetime. Well, not counting little drama concerning Janine...

Another stab of sharp pain going through her head made her fall back onto the bed again, waking Will up. He looked around, confused as to why he was not in his room, and more important, not in a bed, yet when his memory kicked in and he recognised the young woman sitting in the opposite side of the room, he smiled. "Good morning, dear," he yawned, stretching his aching neck.

Sabrina laughed, as seeing him so sleepy was sure funny. "Good morning to you too." He grinned, walking over to her and embracing her carefully, kissing her. She pushed him away playfully after a moment, hiding her face with her arms. "My head hurts..."

Will sat down on the bed next to her, rubbing his neck. "Yeah, not only yours...my back feels as if someone tried to bend it while I was sleeping."

Sabrina had her eyes closed, her arms crossed over her head. "Well, you shouldn't have slept in the chair. That's quite uncomfortable, you know."

Will looked around the plain room. "I understand, but...where else?!"

An evil giggle. "Well, the bed is big enough for two, isn't it?"

Both psychics sharply turned their heads to the door frame, where Karen was standing, leaning against the frame with one hand for stability, a leg crossed over the other. She was wearing an almost transparent silver negligee, and obviously nothing beneath it. Sabrina snorted inwardly. 'That...sl...' She shook her head. She should know Karen by now…

And yet, she couldn't stop the blush that emanated from her cheeks, at the sheer thought of sleeping in the same bed as him. While it was true that during their trip through the Indigo Mountains, they had had to sleep very close together, it had never been that close. And while she felt so much for him, and loved him so much...that was just too far a step. One step she felt not ready to take yet. One day, maybe. She wasn't sure when, but....she just didn't know what would happen to her then. Would it change her? Would it change their relationship? Sabrina sighed, knowing that those were questions she never had to have to ask herself before. She had never before been so fascinated by a person of the opposite gender.

"Karen..." Will sighed helplessly. "Nice joke, but no thanks." He crossed his arms over his head. "She wouldn't let me anyway..." He winked at Sabrina, who sighed and blushed at the same time. Will turned again to Karen, throwing a sharp glance over her scandalous outfit. He knew that that was usual for Karen, having been forced to sleep in the same room as her for weeks now, so it wasn't new for him and his eyes had gotten used to her skin, not paying it any attention anymore. "Why are you even here?"

The dark trainer rolled her eyes. "Am I not even allowed to worry about my colleagues anymore? You weren't in your hotel room last night, so I wondered where you were hanging around...then I met Janine," she glanced over her shoulder quickly. "And she told me the short version of last night's soap opera, so I decided to check up on you two the next morning to make sure you haven't been maiming each other's bones." She laughed at her own joke, yet Sabrina wondered if it was a speciality of dark trainers to find bloody jokes especially amusing.

"No, we haven't been ripping our limbs off, but thanks for asking." It wasn't hard for Sabrina to sound angry, and her headache really helped.

Will shifted his gaze between the two women, noticing the tension. He had been okay with the dark trainer so far, but he was weak as a psychic, unlike Sabrina. That little fact could explain as to why he didn't feel unwell around Karen, while Sabrina did. "I guess we missed the breakfast?" he asked quietly, to change the topic.

Karen shrugged. "The regular time for breakfast is over, yes, but you know the rule. Everyone who has talked to Lance personally has a VIP bonus, and can get breakfast at 10 PM if necessary." Again, she glanced over her shoulder and smiled. "I guess I should be off now. You two seem okay, so my babysitter job is over." Sabrina tensed. 'Babysitter?!?' "There's someone who urgently wants to talk to you now..." she winked at the two psychics, then turned around and walked away quickly, the movements revealing more of her body than absolutely needed, considering that no man aside from Will was around, and if there was one person Karen would never seriously try to attract, it was her fellow elite member.

Both psychics braced themselves for anything then, for it could even be Lance now that wanted to interrogate them. Sabrina didn't know everything about the league's chef's hidden publicity plans, but she was sure their short-timed breakup had bombed quite a few of them. But it wasn't Lance.

~~~~~~~​

Karen glanced at her right, frowning. The hallway was still shrouded in darkness, the lights not turned on yet. 'Something is off here, way off...' Closing her eyes and shrugging, the dark trainer went down the stairs, deciding not to pay it any more attention. 'Would be too much of a coincidence if I were the only darkling here...'

~~~~~~~​

"Uhm, hey...." Janine stepped into the room, wearing a pink sleeping jumpsuit with little red Bunearys all over, even with a hood with fluffy bunny ears attached to it. Sabrina blinked. That was...unusual clothing for a ninja, to say the last. She knew from her experiences with Koga's sister that pink was popular with the female branch of the family, yet Janine made it a bit awkward. "I wanted to check up on you two, too..."

Will grinned. "Just like Karen, eh? Well, we haven't murdered each other yet, and we were just about to decide if we should do it traditionally with knives or take poison, if you have any left."

"Will!" Sabrina laughed so hard that her headache was starting to pound on her poor nerves, but that was just too funny. "If I want to kill you, I would do it with my powers. I have an honour to defend as the strongest psychic!" <Besides, poison doesn't work with psychics, idiot! You should know that by now!>

"Okay, dear, I got it. I really did," he winked again at her, standing up. "I'm going to get some breakfast for us." Sabrina blinked.

"What do you mean, getting some for us?" She had a slight feeling she knew what he meant by that...but no one had ever...no one had ever done such a romantic favour for her.

He grinned, kissing her hair as he walked out of the door. "Well, I want to make up for yesterday, so I thought breakfast in bed would be just as good as an apology, right? Not to mention that I am a gentleman after all."

'Yeah, you are...' Sabrina thought, smiling unconsciously as she watched him leaving. She froze just when he had reached the stairs and stretched her body to be able to look around the door and reach him with her voice. "Hey, how are you getting it back here, then? You can't carry everything!" His laugh was quiet, but only because he was already walking down the stairs.

"Hey, I didn't train my teleport for nothing!"

Sabrina sighed and leaned back, rubbing the side of her head. 'Let's hope he doesn't overestimate his abilities. Sure, he can teleport by now, but....' She opened her eyes again, shaking her head. If he wanted to try, why not? His decision, anyway. And she couldn't help but admit that it was incredible sweet from him. She was lucky to have him back...

"Ehm..." Janine had flopped down in the chair that had previously been occupied by Will, closing her eyes and yawning. Sabrina snickered again. The jumpsuit had furry gloves attached to it and Janine had just put one on unconsciously. 'To think that she is related to Koga, one of the best and most dangerous ninjas...'

"Short night, eh?" the psychic asked, seeing Janine almost falling asleep on that not so comfortable chair. She didn't want her to suffer the same fate as Will, for Sabrina was sure Janine also had her own hotel room and could easily return to that to get some more sleep. Janine had already apologized the previous night and Sabrina didn't see the need for another unbridled talk. Of course she was sure she hadn't been told all the details, for she was sure the head of that operation, Claire, hadn't even told Janine everything, and for another, the young ninja was surely embarrassed by her own stupidity to tell her everything. Sabrina closed her eyes. She knew that her old rival Claire had directly planned this as an attack against her, against her psyche, but that she would go as far as using an innocent, naive girl. No, Janine was not completely at fault. She was simply too young, too inexperienced with the way the league worked.

Just as Will was.

"Yeah, very short night...I couldn't sleep after...you know..." Janine smiled helplessly, her tiredness almost getting the better of her again. Her hair, only yesterday evening having been tied into a tight, short pony tail, was sticking out in all directions at that moment, as if someone had detonated fireworks there. It reminded the psychic of her own comedian, her Haunter. It still loved its bombs...

"Don't worry, Janine, really...I'm not mad at you. Not at all." She smiled."We could become friends, you know? You seem nice, after all."

Janine blinked, her sleepiness making her mind working much slower than usual. "Re-really?" she squealed with delight. "That would be so grea-whaaaa!" Janine threw herself back into the chair when a bright, white light exploded in the middle of the room, startling her. Sabrina smiled knowingly. She knew how a teleport looked like. A beginner's teleport, but a teleport nonetheless. He really was improving.

A thud made her sweatdrop. 'Well, he's still learning...'

"Ouch...." Will had landed on his stomach. Yet, with an artistic performance unbelievable enough to be admired by both Sabrina and Janine, he had managed to keep the tablet balanced on his left hand, neither letting it fall down nor spilling any of the drinks he had brought with him. Sabrina glanced over the tablet, noticing everything he had brought with him...'I should have told him...'

"Ehm..." Janine blinked. She was still trembling a bit, but she was calming herself more and more. She recognized the flash now as a teleport, however, all the teleports she had seen hadn't ended with the person in question in such an awkward and uncomfortable position...

Sabrina smiled at her. "That's probably because you have never seen an amateur teleport. It's a difficult discipline. It doesn't take that much time to learn Teleport in itself, yet perfecting it, specifically the direct direction and the position you end up..." she smiled, glancing over at Will, who tried to get up without covering himself in a mix of their breakfast's ingredients. Smiling, with closed eyes, she used her powers to steady him and lower the tablet to her bedside.

"An amateur I am, huh?" Will huffed, brushing the dust of his clothes. "Well, see it that way, it was the first time I teleported myself and I didn't get split into half!"

"Sweet, dear Will, otherwise, I would have to find your pieces all over the ether and puzzle them together." Noticing Janine's wide open eyes and her pale face, Sabrina laughed. "Yes, it's true, if a psychic isn't careful enough with a teleport, half of his body might end up in the location he wished to teleport to, the other might end up in his grandma's kitchen garden. Or the supermarket's till." She smiled at Will, who seemed to be quite proud at himself. "You still have to get better, Will. Two centimetres off downwards and your chest would have merged with the carpet." Will paled, not commenting anymore.

Janine stood up, stretching herself again, yawning. "Well, I better get going now."

"Hey, I wouldn't mind you staying here. You can eat breakfast with us!" Will nodded, still a bit shaken at the thought of being forever glued to a piece of wool. Before trying to pull anything like that off again, he really had to take a few more training lessons with Sabrina...

Janine shook her head. "I don't want to stress you anymore with that headache of yours."

Sabrina giggled weakly. "It's not that bad. At least not anymore." She threw a short glance at Will, smiling. <After all, I found the perfect cure for a hangover...> He returned it nervously.

Janine laughed. "Well, then you're better off than Lucian anywhere. I heard he ended up in the hospital with alcoholic poisoning!"

Sabrina and Will stared at each other with a frightened glance. Their colleague had obviously overestimated his own endurance, reminding Sabrina painfully of the fact that she had been drunk herself...

Janine giggled, seeing the look on the two psychics' faces. "Don't worry, he will be alright. No, I have to go, dad probably wants to see me. I don't want to make him wait any longer." She winked at the two psychics and left the room. As soon as she was outside, Will turned to face Sabrina, who had started to pour some tea into a cup. He sighed and sat down next to her, his head resting on his hand.

"There's just something that…kinda surprises me. I mean…" He bit his tongue, making Sabrina wonder just why he was suddenly nervous. She could feel it, being so close to him. "You're such a good psychic....strong...yet....you didn't read my mind." He glanced at her, looking almost offended. "If you had read it...if you had read my true emotions...none of this would have ever happened. What I mean is..." he paused again. "I love you. I loved you all the time. Never, never was there one moment where I seriously thought about giving you up and taking Janine as my girlfriend. I admit I was too weak to just reject Janine from the beginning, blame it on my gentleness, but I never loved her. Just why couldn't you just have found that out earlier and save us all the mess? Why?" He stared at her eyes, hoping, expecting honesty, taking her left hand in his and squeezing it.

Sabrina sighed and smiled. Will was so...cute sometimes. Yet also so naive. "That's easy to explain. I thought you would get it by yourself." She giggled at the sight of his clueless expression. "Will, I don't read the thoughts of those I trust. I read Janine's mind just now because it was a trivial matter. But in general, I don't read minds when I don't absolutely need to. It's an interference in privacy. I just don't do that to people that mean so much to me. And especially not on delicate emotional matters like love." The gym leader shook her mind. "Years ago, I would have done that without batting an eyelash, without caring about the consequences. But not anymore. I trust you, so I let you keep your thoughts for yourself."

Will was stunned. She was wrong; he would have never found an explanation by himself. He had expected many reasons, many psychic reasons that were too complex for his mind to grasp, yet that she simply trusted him that much...it was amazing. He couldn't believe it. He was surprised that she was that...loyal to him. It made him feel even worse for all he had done. "You trust me...oh, Sabrina…I..." he sighed. "Thanks, I guess. I never thought....oh, well." He smiled at her. "Guess I should watch every step of mine from now on, just to make sure I don't hurt you ever again." He smiled. "You're worth it."

Now it was Sabrina's turn to be stunned. She didn't fight her blush, knowing that it just made her cuter. Taking a deep breath, she decided to change the topic, to something she had been...curious about. Even if it was a bit embarrassing. "Ehm, back then, when I saw you and Janine..." Will blinked. "You two...ehm, was that a French-kiss?" she asked, unusally shy for the psychic gym leader.

"It was kind of." Will grinned, leaning back on the bed. "I'm positive Janine never French-kissed before, as it was so awkward."

"I see..." Sabrina bit her lip. She hoped he would have said something else, but for now, she didn't know how to ask. She didn't even know if it was worth asking, but then, they had unconsciously agreed on being honest with each other. Always.

"Could you teach me?" Will opened his eyes wide, staring at the ceiling. Had he heard her right!?! She wanted him to teach her how to...French-kiss? 'Oh my god...'
"What?" he had to ask, just to make sure he had understood her.

Sabrina turned away, blushing. "Well, I just thought, it...ah, never mind." She turned away. 'One day, I will learn it...'

Will was facing her now, lying on his side. "I didn't decline...I was just surprised..." He smiled. "But I would love to."

Sabrina blinked when he leaned to her, gently stroking her cheeks. "Be careful, the tea's ho-" He silenced her with a kiss and the next moment, the tea was the last thing on the psychics' minds.

~~~~~~~​

Playing with the mobile phone between her long, slender fingers, the woman let the sunlight fall over her slightly wavy, blonde hair. Jenny still hadn't found the Espeon. Cynthia closed her eyes in frustration. Of course, even for a professional hunter like her, it wasn't an easy task, catching an Espeon that had spent the better half of its life in the wilderness, never been touched by humanity's hand before. But she needed it; she needed it to finish her plan and get rid of Lucian. That idiot...he had ended up in the hospital with alcoholic poisoning. Officially. Unofficially...well, his fault. He had been gossiping a bit too much...poor guy. Confusion and alcohol didn't mix well, he should know that.

She smiled, bumping her elbow into the ribs of the man sleeping not so peacefully next to her. Cynthia slowly sat up, glancing over him. He was having a nightmare. She sighed. It could be her fault, yet it could be coincidence, who knew? In the end, she didn't give a damn. She was going to give up Lance as soon as she was out of this middle-age-like rubbish tip. She never got why Kanto's people were laughing at Sinnoh, when they weren't better at all. Of course, Sinnoh wasn't trusted by anyone, being a freshly new league with a female champion, but once she was over with that, Sinnoh's citizens would surely had something to laugh about...Indigo's incompetence and a boss who rather slept with the champion instead of taking care of organization, and not even noticing when something went completely wrong. For her, nothing had gone wrong so far.

~~~~~~~​

Sabrina was leant against her boyfriend, smiling and drinking the last sips of the tea. "Shouldn't we get up now..?" Will asked, though he sounded anything but willing to fulfil the task hinted in his question. It was already noon, yet none of them felt ready to get up at all.

"Nah..." Sabrina was comfortable with everything staying the way it was right then. She could spend the whole day in that peaceful haze if nothing hindered her. And aside from Will, there was actually nothing keeping her from staying in bed all day. Grinning, she thought that maybe she even deserved this slip into laziness. She could always excuse herself with her headache, even though it had nearly disappeared by then.

"Aw, come on...." Will sat up, letting Sabrina fall back onto the sheets. She growled. "I'm not tired anymore." She continued to growl. "And you know what?" He smiled at her. "I've got some plans for today..."

"What plans?" Sabrina wasn't sure she even wanted to know what Will wanted to do.

"Well, for once, I decided to visit our dear colleague in the hospital." He grinned. "You know, Lucian. I wanna see how he's doing..."

Sabrina raised an eyebrow. "And make fun of him?"

"Never, of course not." Will smiled at her innocently, but if there was one thing she was absolutely sure of, it was that he was a notoriously bad liar. "And after that...well, I...ehm..." He was suddenly nervous again. "I thought we could go out for lunch together...I mean, I got my first cheque just days ago, so for once, I don't need to be cheap, and I could invite you..."

Sabrina giggled. How sweet of him. "Of course," she nodded at him. "So, let's meet again in two hours, okay? I will catch some more sleep and you have fun torturing Lucian, right?"

~~~~~~~​

Will had never liked the smell of hospitals. It reminded him of the dreadful day just a month ago, when he had rushed to Indigo's Main Pokecenter, with Sabrina lying in his arms, already unconscious and just seconds away from death....when he had burst into the building and Nurse Joy had taken his dear from him, injecting that weird antidote into her almost brutally, but since every second had counted back then, it had been necessary. And then the weeks Sabrina had been comatose, and he came to the hospital every day, every day the same atmosphere and same smell and he couldn't do anything to wake her up; he could just wait and hope...

Will shook his head. He had to remind himself that that had been long ago, and that Sabrina was okay now and he was there to visit a guy he couldn't really care less about. Yet, maybe it was his manners that told him to come there, even though everything else in him refused to set one step into the bright, white, sterile object. He took a deep breath and opened the milky blue door to Lucian's room, bracing himself. He was really not there to make fun of Lucian, as in fact, he didn't even know why he was there, so he blamed it on his gentlemanlyness.

Lucian looked the worse for wear. He was pale, his hair dull and not really wavy anymore, being rather flat by being laid on for some time. He wasn't wearing his usual red suit anymore, of course; just a plain white hospital gown, which looked quite...embarrassing, to be honest. Now Will was happy that he hadn't decided to bring Sabrina to the hospital too as after yesterday's excess, she would have murdered him had he seen her wearing this. Or, maybe not. She seemed not to have minded him undressing her at all. "Good morning...or should I say, good afternoon?" Lucian looked sharply at him and if looks could kill, Will would then be two floors downwards in the morgue.

"To hell with the morning...," he growled. "I would have rather stayed asleep." He pointed to a small tube that was attached to his left wrist. "Thank god they know how to treat you right. With that glucose infusion, the hangover stays away."

"Great..." Will couldn't hide his disappointment. So Lucian didn't have to deal with headaches, but his beloved had. It was unfair. "I didn't really get what was going on yesterday anyway...care to tell me?" he asked with sly grin.

Lucian raised an eyebrow. "Why should I tell you?"

Will bent his neck sheepishly. "Because I know Teleport now and could bring some reporters with me who would love to portray you with such an amazing wardrobe on?"

Lucian just kept staring at the fellow psychic trainer sardonically. "You can't threaten me with that..." he whispered sharply. "I'm just as good of a psychic as you are, if not better."

"Really?" Will laughed. "You're the first one to tell me..."

Lucian closed his eyes. "Of course. Cynthia made sure that my abilities and hers were kept hidden from the public."

Now Will was really getting interested in the conversation and he couldn't wait to tell Sabrina, almost daring to use telepathy, but then, if Lucian was really psychic, he could intercept the message. And on the other hand, his own telepathy wasn't that good that he could be sure if it reached Sabrina. "Cynthia is also psychic? That's news to me...really."

Lucian sighed. He looked almost...sad now. But why? "Yes, Cynthia's psychic, and not even a bad one. I can't judge how she would fare against your girlfriend, but one thing is certain: she can beat me easily. Of course, I am a weak psychic, having gotten my powers only because of my Pokemon, in contrast to Cynthia, who had hers since her birth." Will couldn't help but notice the similarities between them and Sabrina and him. It was almost the same... "That's probably why she was able to attack me last night."

"She attacked you?" Will blurted out, before looking around to make sure no one had heard him.

Lucian nodded. "She did. I suppose I was telling too much about our...plan."

"Would you mind if I ask about that plan?"

The Sinnoh trainer glared at Will. "You know that I will get in trouble for that? Besides, there's not much that I know. Just that Cynthia wanted to cause some scandal here in Kanto and that she will use the post office affaire to help her. No more. She doesn't tell me anything, you know..." The psychic trainer sighed. "She is always that reserved..."

"Yeah, I know..." Will rolled his eyes, thinking that if one of them had to be described with the word 'reserved,' it was Lucian. Probably the reason why she dumped him and left with Lance. That guy really scarified himself for the league, and Claire, now that Will thought about it. Lance didn't get enough credit for all of his doings, actually, only being spit on when he brought up the topic of money.

"By the way, have they found your Espeon yet?" Will asked, hoping that the change of topic would make both of them feel easier.

Lucian just stared at him with a deep lack of understanding. "Espeon? What Es-"

Both psychics suddenly heard the door being opened and when Will caught glimpse of a black shoe, he decided that it was safer to teleport away, even risking being merged with random things. For all he knew, Lucian was the stronger psychic and Cynthia, being even stronger than Lucian, could be a real danger for him, after Lucian had told him about their plans.

Lucian shivered when the tall, slender woman walked into the room, her shoes causing a melodic clack on the floor. "Lucian, my sweetheart..." She smiled at him and it was all the more sinister. She touched his chin, kissing his cheek. The furry ends of her coat tickled his skin. "I know you want to get me back. But you have to play fair for that and stay quiet, understood? I will sort everything out." She smiled at him and for once, for once, it was a real, compassionate smile. 'Maybe Jenny is right...' "I'm not mad at you, but you'll have to wait for me to sort everything out."

~~~~~~~​

Will re-appeared just outside of the hotel room, coughing and leaning onto the white, spotless walls. Teleporting was a lot more energy-consuming than it looked like and it continued to amaze him how Sabrina had managed to teleport over twenty people in a physical state where not even walking was possible for her anymore. It told him a lot about her strength, yet he was nothing in comparison to her, and it was very likely that he was nothing in comparison to Lucian or Cynthia, either.

He had to stable himself for a moment, to catch his breath and stop the swirls in front of his eyes. Teleporting sure wasn't as easy as it looked like for someone not able to wield psychic powers, and he still had to learn a lot. If he hadn't suddenly felt that danger, that dark foreboding emerging, he wouldn't have taken the risk. Sabrina was right: one moment of losing concentration might cause unpleasant consequences. And teleporting to the wrong direction was the smallest one of these.

Quietly, he opened the door to see if his dear was already awake. To his surprise, she was, already getting dressed. He just stood in the doorframe, helpless, mesmerized by her unearthly presence. He stared at her, not wanting to interrupt her, not wanting to make his presence known at all. He felt he was interfering with her privacy. Yet deep inside, he knew he wasn't. They were so close, and if there was one thing both of them didn't mind, it was the other watching.

Sabrina turned around, not surprised at all to see him. She had felt his presence minutes earlier, and let him stay in his dreamy haze while undressing. She didn't mind, as he was too much of a gentleman to dare to touch her without her clear permission. "Are you ready?" she finally asked, acknowledging his presence at last. Will nodded.


End of Chapter 6, Part 1
 
1,124
Posts
17
Years
  • Seen Jun 5, 2022
Lovely chapter. Lots of Will x Sabrina, very romantic. What was my favorite part? Well, of course, Cynthia's visit to Lucian in the hospital. Most of this part seemed to be a preparation for something bigger to come. The real action didn't occur here, it'll occur later. I can't wait to see it... but of course the fanservice in the meantime was pretty nice in its own right.
 

delongbi

I C U
161
Posts
16
Years
Yay! A new chapter!

It reminded him of the dreadful day just a month ago, when he had rushed to Indigo's Main Pokecenter, with Sabrina lying in his arms, already unconscious and just seconds away from death....when he had burst into the building and Nurse Joy had taken his dear from him, injecting that weird antidote into her almost brutally, but since every second had counted back then, it had been necessary.

Yeah... I think that was a run on...

This chapter was mostly fluff, and I love fluff! Therefore, by transitive property, I loved the chapter!

And Cynthia's a psychic!?!? Did we know this before? Have I just been an unobservant reader? Ahh... the
Well, Cynthia was there, just not in a physical way.
suddenly makes sense. Makes everything a step more complicated. She's a pretty complicated character to begin with...

Anyway, great chapter! Can't wait for the next!
 

Psychic*Absol

Psychic Student
2,231
Posts
19
Years
Thanks at both of you for liking the chapter! ^^
@CPF You're quite right, this chapter was mostly there to explain some things, some background information that needed to be given before the real actions starts. Don't worry, the action will start...I know because I'm still at writing the final battle...(in chapter 7, btw)

@delongbi No, you were not an unobservant reader (rather the opposite, heh ^.~). Cynthia being psychic was hinted last chapter with the attack on Lucian and was revealed this chapter by Lucian. And, for credit, it was CPF's original idea which I took over for my fic. =3
 
206
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14
Years
  • Seen Dec 21, 2013
Well, some hints about what might happen... poor Lucian, after drunk himself to coma, he will now be in trouble with Cynthia I guess. xD Anyway, she seemed to still love him, but I'm sure she's not honest. And surely something big will happen, the plan of Cynthia will come out even - or not - soon for sure.

Only that much PsychicShipping was hard to take. <<
 
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Psychic*Absol

Psychic Student
2,231
Posts
19
Years
*hides from readers* *hides especially from Wyyrlokk* XD No, I have not forgotten about the fic. *I* haven't. *cough*

6. Chapter, Part 2: Scandals& Sincerity

Just minutes later, the two psychics were sitting at a table just outside of a smaller restaurant, enjoying the fresh spring air. Sabrina relaxed, feeling much better now that she was outside with her headache being gone, and, most importantly of course, together with Will again. For now, she just wanted to forget what had happened before: the breakup, her near breakdown, her excess...she just wanted to spend as much time with him as possible and enjoy it, and that was what she did. Will, on the other hand, looked uneasy. This didn't stay hidden from Sabrina.

She raised an eyebrow, watching her boyfriend carefully. She could both feel and see his discomfort, yet she did not know why. And just as she had promised mere hours before, she would never read his mind to find out. There was a more direct and honest way. "Will...what's distressing you?" She took a sip of her tea. "I can see that you're upset. I can feel it."

Will closed his eyes. There were several reasons as to why he was upset, and many of them were connected to each other. It would be hard describing what was going on inside him. Yet there was especially one thing that confused him greatly. "Have you read the newspaper today?"

Sabrina silently took another sip, glancing at Will. "Of course not. Do you think I cared about the newspaper when I was drunk?" she smiled, actually not mad at Will, yet teasing him. "Besides, I had no chance to buy the newspaper yet. Maybe I could ask Misty to lend me hers..." She glanced at the man sitting opposite of her. "Why do you ask? Did they write nasty stuff about us again?" Sabrina grinned, rolling her eyes playfully. "Likely after yesterday..."

Will shook his head. "Not about us, dear. About Lance. Lance and, well, you know, Cynthia." He bit his tongue. Should he tell her about Lucian's revealing? How big were the chances that the Sinnoh trainer had told him the truth?

Sabrina glanced at the waiter, who didn't seem to have noticed them at all yet. She was getting a bit impatient, but since they had nothing else to do that afternoon, she wouldn't hurry. "Lance and Cynthia, I see. Well, it is quite the gossip, isn't it? Lance was the designated husband for Claire-family issues, you know. The dragon trainers want to keep to themselves, what with all the honour and purity they have piled up." Sabrina rolled her eyes, yet she couldn't deny that psychics tried to exclude themselves from the rest of the world, too. Or maybe they were forced to. It wasn't easy to tell. "And then he falls head over heels for Cynthia." The psychic giggled. "Well, I can understand him; Cynthia is more beautiful than Claire, yet, that he would dump Claire that suddenly..." She shrugged.

Will nodded carefully. "That's exactly what astonished me, too. It's so...unexpected. Out of the blue. And completely untypical for Lance. He's always trying to be the Mr. Clean of the league: no affaires, no bribing, no dark patches...nothing. And then, suddenly, he throws everything away for a woman?" Will shook his head. "That's not Lance." He paused, glancing at the ground uneasily. "Say, Sabrina....can psychics take control of someone's personality?"

Sabrina looked up, oblivious of Will's suspicion. "You mean taking control of one's mind? Oh, yes, we're able to. Yet..." She closed her eyes. Slowly, she became aware of his conclusions. "If you think that's the case with Lance, I have to disappoint you, that's just not possible. For once, Lance's bodyguards always carry some dark Pokemon with them to intercept any psychic influence on the champion. And secondly..." She paused, as the waiter had finally decided to take notice of them and was taking the order now.

"Can you recommend the Italian soufflé?" Before the waiter could even come up with the beginning of a responce, Sabrina continued with a mocking smile. "Never mind, I'll take it anyway, as long as it doesn't include any meat."

Will looked up. "You're vegetarian? Never knew that..."

Sabrina again smiled at this. "I am. I could never eat something that was able to think...." She shuddered. "Call it a psychics' issue, but I distaste meat greatly..."

Will grinned, thinking that this was not the only reason. "Too bad that a certain psychic Pokemon is liked widely as the main dish, eh?"

Sabrina glared at him. "I would rather starve than eat a Grumpig, you're right. And don't even dare to order it now because of me, because I will leave immediately if you do so!"

Will shrugged, itching to order the beef burger now to make fun of her, yet it in the end, he did not. He didn't want to lose her ever again, and especially not over a minor thing like that. He loved her too much. Not so much that he would actually start being a vegetarian himself then, as he had starved too often in his life to not enjoy the advantages of having a steady and well-paid job.

Sabrina sighed again, leaning back after the waiter had left. She was a bit uneasy; she had never been invited by someone before and the prices were steep, after all. Will noticed this and had the right assumption. "Don't worry, my dear, I will pay and I do have enough money to pay." He laughed as he leaned back, crossing his arms over his head. "Actually, I have more money now than in my whole life before!"

Sabrina raised an eyebrow. Something about this did not sound right to her. "But doesn't the main part of the elite's salary come from the money won by battling trainers? I'm not sure, but that's what I heard from former elites...and you haven't had a usual battle yet at all..."

Will winked at the other psychic. "So what? It's still more than ever before..." He stared at the sky, content and calm."I'm rich....I still can't believe it...I got rich..."

Sabrina rolled her eyes. "Well, where did I end....ah, Lance." She smiled at Will. "Secondly...psychics can control minds, but I'm fairly sure Lance isn't mind controlled. The way mind control works doesn't correspond with the way Lance acts right now. To keep full control of a person, said psychic has to stay around the victim 24/7, and that is at least in seeing range. No one here could do that without getting unwilled attention, right?" Will nodded, and yet he was sure there was someone who could...someone he strongly suspected to be an unfair player then. "Not to mention that Lance...well, aside from this affaire now, does he act out of character?" She slowly took a sip of the tea. "Did he suddenly decide to donate all his money for charity? Give everyone free health care? Modernize the Pokecenters? No." She answered for him, smiling. Will was doubtful, though. "The thing is, a person who is being mind-controlled acts completely out of character, because the psychic controlling him influences all actions, all thoughts, all decisions. There is nothing left of the original person. It's just a body with the face of the original; a shell, nothing more. Its personality left. You can't just mind control certain parts of a psyche, it's all or nothing. And no one can copy the victim so much that the change is not noticeable. I'm certain that Lance is not being mind controlled. I would have noticed if there was a psychic strong enough to do that around here." She smiled at Will, hoping to have crushed his fears. Yet he had crossed his fingers and stared at the table.

'A psychic strong enough...' He was frightened.

Sabrina turned her head to the side, still watching Will. She could feel his continued distress and wondered what it was about. "Will..." she whispered, glad that they had chosen a lone and exclusive restaurant for going out, one where the chances of a reporter suddenly popping up were slim.

He looked up and the seriousness in his eyes scared her. "Sabrina, is there a psychic stronger than you?"

She laughed, she laughed so hard he thought she wouldn't stop for quite some time. Her grin was almost wicked, malevolent, as if she dared anyone, especially her pupil Will, to question her status; the brave challengers expecting nothing more than a dreadful defeat. "No, Will." The darkness in her voice scared him deeply, scared him so much that he simply wanted to teleport away again. This was really his girlfriend?! "There is no known psychic stronger than me...there were some in the past, hundreds of years ago...but not in the present."

Will, still frightened by Sabrina's pure presence, couldn't help but remember what Lucian had said. The public did not know about his and Cynthia's abilities. So, no one had judged them. Yet.

Sabrina had closed her eyes, pausing until the waiter had arrived with their lunch, giving her the chance to lower the intimidating atmosphere she had created. On purpose. If there was one thing Sabrina loathed, it was anyone questioning her powers. She had spent way too much time training them not to be rewarded with the title of the strongest psychic. Her ego would not allow anyone to be above her.

Will only regained his composure after a while, with the waiter bringing the food being the main cause, relieving the mood. "Then..." His voice staggered. He could just not get the images out of his mind, the images of what Sabrina was capable of doing. He knew he, he of all people, shouldn't be afraid of her, but that was anything but easy. "Is there any other way of controlling minds?"

Sabrina was quiet for a while, but Will knew without doubt that she had heard his question. She was just teasing him. And she loved doing that. "Yes, there are. Channelers can, but I don't know enough about their ways to explain it properly. It's...kind of using voodoo, if you know what I mean. Yet then, it's not a real mind control, rather a body control. And then..." Sabrina looked up, thinking hard. "Then there's mind tainting."

"Mind what...?" Will wasn't sure he had gotten the word right, and he was just as sure that the explanation behind would be just as confusing to him. Not growing up as a psychic was a disadvantage. Yet when he thought about how he had grown up...he laughed inwardly. No way anyone in his family would have ever thought about him turning out to be psychic.


"Mind tainting. It's what people with dark powers do. It's even more complicated than mind controlling or voodoo. Basically, you take a piece of someone's personality, let's say, a certain phobia, or a certain talent, and you manipulate it. Turn it into the complete opposite, lower it, or do whatever you want with it. Yet its radius is also limited. You can't expend a person's physical potentials to infinity; neither can you stop a person's will to breathe." She laughed. "Yet, I think the legal possibilities are scary enough. Of course, not that it's truly legal...but darklings do it nevertheless." She smiled helplessly. She knew what darklings did...she knew that oh so well. "I know what you're thinking. Someone could have manipulated Lance's mind and made him fall in love with Cynthia." Will looked up. She was right, that had been exactly what he had been thinking about... "Yet, that is not possible either. Lance's mind could have been very well manipulated, yet just because of that, he wouldn't dump Claire all of a sudden. Thing is, mind tainting only manipulates the mind. Not the actions. Meaning that you could be forced to think that you're a Geodude and you try to prove that by banging your head against the table and then you're surprised that it doesn't break and your head hurts." Sabrina smiled darkly at him. "Not to mention that most mind taintings are very, very feeble. We psychics don't mess with emotions, memories, and the like for a good reason. It's just too dangerous. You can destroy more than you think. We even have a rule not to influence others by a greater deal, though I have to admit that we never really defined what 'a greater deal' means. Generally, I guess, it's that we don't damage people's personalities with our powers. Surprisingly, that's something even I followed during my dark days."

Will stopped her. So far, he had listened silently, but now, it was just getting a bit too much for his mind to grasp. "Give it a break, Sabrina, and just tell me why Lance cannot be mind painted!"

Sabrina sighed. "Tainted, Will, tainted. And I was just about to explain...mind taintings are fragile. They break the very moment you are confronted with 'reality', with the real happenings, your real body, and your real emotions. Will, the very second Lance sees anything that indicates a relationship between him and Claire, he forgets everything about Cynthia. That's not the way it was planned, right? The only way I could see such a manipulation working would be if said person was both psychic and dark. Than it could control Lance's body with its psychic powers and keep him from seeing Claire or any hint that they were together, and influence his love life via mind tainting. That could work."

Will looked up. "That could work?"

Sabrina nodded. "In theory. But not in reality. There are no dark psychics."

~~~~~~~​

In the dinner room of the league, several of the big, dark brown wooden tables had been pushed together to create one big table. Covered with one equally big white sheet, it looked as if someone had been preparing for an important meeting. And while it was no official meeting, the one in question was important for all participants.

Sitting in the middle seat at the longer side of the table, Claire, the initiator of the secret convention, clearly claimed the role of the leader for herself and only herself. Even with rings whose diameter rivalled that of a medicine ball under her eyes, a melting ice bag on her head and her third cup of coffee standing in front of her.

Around her, five other girls were sitting, chatting angrily. There was only one general topic of interest right now: The sheer unbelievable mass of recent breakups. And the unpleasant consequences.

While the breakup of Sabrina and Will had caused some joyful celebrating there, it was only short-lived, as they became reconciled the very next night. All in all, the breakup had lasted for twelve hours, if at all. And the only one profiting from it had been Janine. The traitor. Who hadn't dared to show up. Of course, it was only good for her own health, as she wouldn't have been treated nicely here now anymore.

Claire moaned, every sound way too loud for her sensitive ears, and the colours too bright for her more sensitive eyes. If it hadn't been for the urgency of it all, and the need for a fast decision, she wouldn't have got out of bed yet, rather continuing to cure her hangover. But hell, it had been worth it. What did Lance dare to, to just forget her after years of being together, to throw away all her belongings, smash their photos, all their memories of being together. It hurt.

Finally, all the girls had sat down, now looking at Claire with mixed hopes. Would their little alliance even continue to survive now that their leader obviously had other priorities on her mind? Would they manage to survive without Claire, when it had been her idea and her initiality? And after seeing how fruitless their first idea had ended...with them losing one member, losing the chance to fight again for their target's love, and worse, probably even strengthening the bond between the witch and Will...

Claire stood up. She recognized the expectations resting on her and she stared ahead with strong eyes. "Girls...we may have lost the battle, but not the war. We need another plan." A wave of enthusiastic crying and screaming hit her, making her smile and making her, for once, feel like her beloved Lance, the war leader.

"In war and in love, everything is allowed. And this, my dear followers, is both. So anybody got an idea?"

Karen, so far being certainly one of the quietest around there, slowly stood up, silencing the mass instantly. With her cold attitude, her daring outfits and her general presence, she scared many. "They say opposites attract...maybe I should give it a try." She smiled evilly. "After all....no one has infected little Will's mind with dirty things yet, right?"

A combined shudder went through the group, yet no one dared to differ, for all, all of them, feared Karen. Claire nodded. "Okay, give it a try, Karen."

The dark trainer sat down again, smiling to herself. 'These fools...they have never seen true love. Otherwise, they would pray to Cupid that he forgives them for their sin of interfering with his ways....'

~~~~~~~​

Will looked up, his glass of water waving around. "You say that's not possible? Why?" He paused. "I admit I don't know much about the genetics behind psychic powers, but apparently, they can be both inherited from relatives or one can become accustomed to them after being close to psychic Pokemon for a long time. Now, I don't see why someone couldn't get dark powers when he's already a psychic!"

Sabrina paused and, in Will's opinion, she took a very long time to answer. "You're right about the two ways of getting psychic powers. You can inherit them- like I did, and your Pokemon can carry over some of them to you. Former method is the more accepted and idolized version, as these psychics generally get stronger, may it be by longer training time or other reasons we haven't found out about yet. Though, it is also verified that for a child, it doesn't matter whether its parents got their powers through the genes or through closeness to their Pokemon. Said child still has a greater potential than a child with only one psychic parent, and the same chances as one with both parents being psychics by birth." She eyed him. Will looked confused, not knowing why she was edging around that topic. The psychic gym leader sighed. She feared how the elders would react to her boyfriend; she really feared they wouldn't accept him, because he hadn't been born as a psychic, but that was definitely something she did not have to discuss with him. Yet. Maybe later.

She coughed uneasily. "What I wanted to say is...there cannot be someone with both psychic and dark powers because they cancel each other out. Dark powers block psychic powers, yet the energy that is needed to block the psychic powers reduces the dark powers to zero as well. The conclusion is, said person has neither psychic nor dark powers." She looked up, right into Will's eyes. "There are no dark psychics, or psychic darklings, for that matter. These powers are incompatible."

Will looked downwards. "If you...say so." He trusted his girlfriend, as after all, she knew much more about supernatural abilities than him, yet the nagging feeling that she could not know everything stayed in the back of his mind. To relieve himself of his unwanted tension, he again shifted the topic to something he could at least comprehend better and probably contribute. "Say, what happened to the egg?"

Sabrina smiled. She had been wondering when he would bring that up... "The Eevee egg, you mean? Well, Nurse Joy takes care of it. It was barely alive when I brought it to her, yet she says the chances that it stays alive are high enough to risk intensive treatment. If everything goes well, it should hatch in a few days."

"Eevee egg? It's an Eevee egg?!?" Will couldn't hide his astonishment. "Sabrina, do you know how rare these are?" She nodded. "Not to mention how expensive..." he added quietly, yet Sabrina still caught it and laughed.

"I know that, my dear. Yet I couldn't just let the egg freeze to death when I found it, could I? Nevertheless, you're right, it is rare and therefore, I'm sure someone is missing it in his or her mail right now." She played with the forks a bit, letting them spin around the table and startling Will with it. "I had planned on contacting the post office as soon as possible and find out together with them who the egg belongs to. The egg has to be given to its true owner before it hatches." She noticed his frown. "Don't worry, I won't keep it. Sure I would like to, Eevee are rare and cute..."

"And evolve into Espeon..." Will whispered, apparently absent-minded, yet with a sly grin.

Sabrina laughed. "Yes, and that. But still, it's not my Pokemon and someone out there surely is waiting for it, so I'll do anything to find that person and give him, or her, the egg back. Unlike Hunter J, I'm not a thief." She closed her eyes. "That's actually what I plan on doing for the rest of the day. It should be pretty easy, considering that I got the registration number of the egg and the post office keeps track of all oversea shipping and, by giving me the passwords, allowed me to get into their data base."

"No mind manipulation there?" Will asked, honestly confused as to why the post office would trust a, well, not a complete stranger, but someone completely out of the background, with such delicate information.

"No, not at all. I guess they didn't want to have to search through all the data themselves and were happy that someone volunteered to do it without payment."

Will looked away, slightly distressed. 'Without payment...' He said, wondering if his past ever stop haunting him?

~~~~~~~​

An hour later, Sabrina was sitting in the huge, yet as good as empty multipurpose foyer of the league, which was kept in the same semi-modern style in blue, silver and white as the rest of the complex. She would have rather done the task on her own laptop, but that had been one condition of the post office's head: no copying of the files onto a private computer. Yet she wondered if a public one was that much safer...

"Phew...I correct myself, this is going to take some time..." 'The whole afternoon, if worse comes to worse...' She thought angrily, staring at the columns of numbers and dates and names. The only clue she had was the Eevee's registration number, but not even the date of its arrival, which would have made the search for its rightful owner a bit easier.

Sighing, she decided to use the search engine instead of going by simple luck. 'Let's see...where is that stupid note again?' She rummaged through the folder she had taken with her, finally finding the small, blue piece of square paper with the number written on in narrow black.'896 986, well, let's see if that gets me any farther...'

After a moment of waiting and the computer's searching, a long column of items showed up, longer than the whole screen. Sabrina rolled her eyes. Just as she had feared, but not expected. The owner of the Eevee had almost registered and shipped over a whole household. She could see various bags with clothes on the list, both for men and women, and things of everyday life: towels, toothbrush, books, make-up...it seemed as if someone had decided to spend his holiday in Kanto and wanted to take his soon hatching egg with him. Yet, the only thing missing on the list was the egg. There were several Pokemon shipped over under the number; too, as Sabrina could see the coding for an Espeon, a Girafarig, and a Lucario. Yet there was no trace that the egg had been under them, even thought it would make sense with a male? - Espeon being one of the shipped Pokemon.

Sabrina rubbed her forehead, confused and slightly irritated. She was just about to close the page and call the post office again to see if they had given her the right number when she noticed something weird. Very weird. The present Will and she had given to Lucian and Cynthia was listed here, too. Yet that was just not possible. The present had been registered under a number of the Pokemon league and those numbers were given exclusive for each item, so there were just not several listed under one number like it was the case there.

'I don't get it...why is it here?' Sabrina shuddered when a breeze of cold wind swept through the room. "Who the heck left the windows open?" She snarled at no one in particular, just trying to take out her anger at humanity in general. But since no one really bothered to spend any attention to the psychic, or rather, no one dared to take the responsibility and the risk of being punished by her, she had to close the windows by herself. Not really easy, when you were just a bit over 5 ft 3 in tall...

Sighing, Sabrina looked out of the windows, gazing over the beautiful landscape. She wished she could have spent a few more hours with Will, yet she had to find the owner of the Eevee, there was no way around it. Slightly saddened, she returned to her seat, just to realize that the note was not there anymore.

"Oh great!" It just got more and more frustrating. There was no way she could remember the number, and she needed the note to inform the post office operator about his mistake and probably correct it. Thankfully, the little piece of paper had only been blown away from the table. "Hah, got ya!" She exclaimed, reaching for it and standing up, throwing one glance over it and then over the computer's screen. "Huh...?" Now this was even more weird. She was sure she hadn't made a mistake when typing in the number, yet now, the note showed a completly different number than the search engine's box. Confused, Sabrina fiddled with the note in her fingers until the realization almost hit her...

"Oh, no, please don't tell..." She let herself fall back onto the seat, massaging her strained temples. "896 986 is 986 968...just upside down! Argh!" She hit her forehead with her palm and her fingers almost tripped over each other as she searched for the new number. And viola, there, the egg was, registered with a date, a number and a description. What else could she wish for?

'No...not this.' The owner actually having a genuine name. The only things written in the box labelled 'Person of responsibility' were a few letters. 'I.L., c/o L. Grey'. Yet Sabrina, being a member of the league for many years now, knew what that meant. The egg was property of someone no less than Lance Grey, their state's head.

And now, dread washed over Sabrina, because she had come to yet another conclusion.

She closed the second window, opening the one with the wrong number again and scanned the other coding. More and more familiar Pokemon names came to her mind, Pokemon like Garchomp and Bronzong. And when she clicked on the date when these Pokemon had arrived and, at the same time, compared it to the date the egg had arrived, her theory was, unfortunately, confirmed.

Finally, she leant back, supporting her aching head with her hand. "Oh, goodness....I hope Lance doesn't murder me the second he finds out..."

Opening her eyes again, she tried to puzzle together all the pieces without panicking too much. She and Will had messed up. Greatly. The statue was not the real present; it had all been a mistake. Just because of the stupid similarity of those two numbers. The package with the model had been upside down, so that its real number, 896 986, had appeared to be the number of the egg, 986 968. And they hadn't checked the package's shipping's formulas once they were out of the post office with it, so they had never noticed the slip-up.

And the real present, the egg, had arrived just a day too late. Of course, now Lance's explanation, that the first present was not 'available' anymore, made sense. Just like the egg, the first one was very likely to be close to hatching when it had been supposed to be given to Lucian and Cynthia, but due to Team Rocket's interference, the meeting had to be cancelled. And the egg had hatched in between, so Lance had to get a new one. One that was now in the possession of Indigo League's Nurse Joy.

Sabrina rubbed her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm herself. There was still some way to save the situation, there had to be some way. Yet, she knew she could never find the strength to go to Lance and tell him about it personally...

For the moment, everything was okay, since neither Lucian nor Cynthia seemed to have noticed the error yet and Lance, too, hadn't called her to his office, so he was just as clueless. Maybe she could smuggle the egg out of the Pokecenter somehow, hide it and get rid of it later. She knew a lot of trainers that would gladly take care of an Eevee. Herself being one of them, too.

Sabrina sat up, ready to leave, when she slipped and, rather by accident then by pure will, touched the enter button again, yet the search options now labelled with the addition of 'ten years ago'.

Annoyed, Sabrina wanted to close the multiple searching windows as soon as possible, but hesitated when she read a name that was oh so familiar. 'Bender....?'

More out of pure boredom then out of real interest- since Bender wasn't that of an uncommon name, she sat down again and decided to do a quick search.
 

Psychic*Absol

Psychic Student
2,231
Posts
19
Years
(Continued)
The silence of the room was unearthly, especially when one considered what was going on inside. The young man, his spiky, red-pink hair bathed in shadows, was getting dressed without saying a single word, without making a single sound. His movements were robotic, and, strangely enough, he paused every few seconds to glance at the young woman sitting on his bed, her legs crossed, her head resting on her right hand. She nodded now and then, to confirm his every doing and yet it didn't look like as if there was any need for her to disapprove of any of his movements. Her silver eyes just stared sleepily ahead, watching him and yet not watching him, for there was nothing he could do that she did not foresee.

When she started to talk, it was as if a soundless world got catapulted into another dimension. "And you will call off your bodyguards, right? We don't need yours, mine will do well." His bodyguards would ruin her whole plan with their dark Pokemon, blocking her powers and making her lose control of him. She couldn't allow him to get near anyone, especially his ex-girlfriend, yet. Yet she wasn't inclined on keeping him forever, no. She would give him back. Lance was just a means to an end, just like the other, blissfully unaware, league trainer. Cynthia bit her lip. And just like Lucian, too. Yet he was a means to an end and target at the same time. She had used him, she admitted. She had lied to him and she continued to lie to him, telling herself that men were the last thing she needed. And women, judging from how Jenny had failed so far.

Yet, was that the truth?

"You'll stay in your office. Don't answer anyone before contacting me, right? Don't let anyone come in, either. You have the authority to do so. You'll meet them soon enough." The man nodded before walking out of the door without a word, closing the door behind him.

Cynthia let herself fall back onto the bed, her hair covering the sheets, spreading in all directions. For one moment, she could exclude all trouble from her life, because for once, there was nothing she had to take care of, nothing to organize, no strings to pull. For once, even she had to wait. She had to wait for Jenny to find the Espeon. Then, the curtains would rise again and the final act would start, with both tragic heroes falling and failing. It was a short act, probably only consisting of several dialogues, and yet it was worth it.

Was it?

Glancing at the calendar to her left, she tensed. Considering how the day was likely to be lost, she only had five more days. Five days...would that be nearly enough? After all, she had hired the best hunter in the whole of Sinnoh, and still, she hadn't managed to catch an Espeon in a matter of two days. And she couldn't hide Lance forever...

On the other hand, that psychic trainer had most likely been informed by her boyfriend about the 'stolen' Pokemon already, and if she was clever, she had drawn the right conclusion about her involvement...

Cynthia smiled malevolently. Why not use it to her advantage...?

~~~~~~~​

Sabrina yawned, her gaze slowly wandering over to the clock hanging on the wall away from her. It was getting late, and she had already missed dinner, though, knowing her colleagues, she had not really missed a lot. Maybe Will was already wondering where she was now, as after all, she had told him it wouldn't take long to find the owner and she would come back to her hotel room as soon as she had an address or anything of use. But now, she had already spent over three hours there. And only because of the free internet connection...

Sabrina giggled. Well, if Will really worried about her, he should know that she had her own mind and had all the right to do whatever she wanted to. He was not her babysitter and she was not going to take the minutes of everything she did just for him. And after all, she had taken her mobile with her, he had her phone number and he could always call her...

Hopefully, he wouldn't.

She was just too absorbed in the article she had found minutes ago. After browsing around aimlessly for more than half an hour, she had finally decided to follow the trace of the name 'Bender'. In the end, it had turned out to be quite a funny story. Not that she really got all of the details, because that was just impossible when the only sources were a single entry in the post office's registration data base and a newspaper article of about five lines. Apparently, a George Bender, a man of forty-five years back then, had to send an apology to the Pokemon League itself because his son, a 'high-spirited rascal of fourteen' had tried to rob the Pokemon Center of Teak City. Sabrina shook her head; the dumbness of the boy was simply incredible. Pokemon Centers had no money themselves, as the only things stored there were medicine and sometimes food for the incoming trainers, but most of the times, even food had to be ordered from local companies. Anyone who tried to rob a Pokemon Center had to be either very stupid or very desperate. She couldn't find out which of these two the boy had been, but the story was hilarious nevertheless. An apology letter....Sabrina shook her head. Lance hadn't been the head back then, as it had still been Charles Goodshow, and he had apparently been a lot less demanding than Lance was nowadays. Had this happened under his reign, the poor boy would still be paying damages. Sabrina wondered briefly what he was doing now...

Maybe he was now a Pokemon trainer himself. Sabrina blinked suddenly, before yawning and squeezing her eyes tight shut. It was already getting late and that certainly influenced her awareness. If that boy had been fourteen then, he had already been a trainer, at least if he had started the usual way. Sabrina shook her head, while resting it on her arms next to the keyboard of the computer at the same time. A trainer robbing a Pokemon center...even more reasons to believe said trainer was more than just dumb.

Slowly, without noticing, Sabrina started to fall asleep in the hall.

Yet, someone had been worried about her. Someone had been wondering where she had been, after her promise to come back as soon as possible. And said someone was now going to look for her.

Will slowly walked down the stairs to the giant main foyer, the place where Sabrina had said she would be by then. It was already getting darker and the ceiling-reaching windows didn't give as much light then as they had in the hours before. The room was not lit by artificial light, for Lance wasn't willed to pay for random people who might not even belong to the league, using the electricity instead. So then, already past six PM, the only lights in the room came from the computer screens and the rare bedside lamps brought by the long workers. He rolled his eyes at Lance's parsimony, cost-cutting at the cost of his employee's eyesight. At least Sabrina wasn't in immediate danger, because from what he saw, his beloved had already fallen asleep. He smiled and walked up to her, slowly stroking her silky dark hair. She shifted slightly in her sleep, but didn't wake up. She was too tired, as she hadn't gotten enough sleep the past morning, so she was making up for it then. And Will wasn't going to disturb her, not in the least. He put his left arm under her neck and slowly lifted her from the chair, still amazed at how light a grown woman could be. Her long hair tickled his arm, as she squirmed into his arms, still asleep, yet feeling instinctively more relaxed, as if she knew who was carrying her. And maybe she did, even without her powers, even without a consciousness.

Will had to be even more careful when he walked up the stairs to the hotel rooms, yet he didn't expect her to wake up any time soon. She was really in deep, deep slumber and hadn't even reacted much to the changing of environment when he had walked out of the foyer into April's fresh spring air. She didn't even shudder, just keeping her peaceful, calm face cuddled against his vest, searching, longing for the warm and for the sound of his heartbeat. He smiled wordlessly at her, glad that they had come back to each other.

He was now standing in front of her hotel room, carefully balancing what weight she had on his chest and knees, while trying hard to not wake her up. That got even harder when he noticed that her door was locked and the only ones probably having access to the keys were either asleep or not within reach. Irresolutely, he stood there for a while, not knowing what to do. He couldn't get into her room, for he didn't want to risk teleporting inside together with her when he was still inexperienced, yet he didn't want to wake her up either. After glancing at the left, where his and Karen's room was located, he remembered what Karen had said. She had been kind of right... He shivered as he got an idea, one that wasn't all that comfortable thinking about... But in the end, he had no other choice.

Slowly, he opened the door to his hotel room, as he had left the door open when he had left to search for Sabrina. The room was dark as well, only the light from the street lamps illuminating a few outlines. Will stared at the shadows in front of him, allowing his eyes to get used to them. Then he walked into the room and let Sabrina slowly down on the bed, taking her shoes and coat off her shoulders. He left her in her underwear, not daring to undress her completely, not daring to cross that border yet. She was beautiful enough as she was, and he already shuddered from the sheer thought of...spending the night with her. Not in the sexual way, but just staying there with her. Again and yet closer. He took off his own vest, his pants, his shoes, and, for a rare occasion, his mask as well. Here, in this complete darkness, with only his beloved around him, he felt safe enough to do so. Tracing his scars with his fingers, he shuddered at the memory of the pain, of the fear and of the burning knowledge that he would forever be marked, all because of a simple slip, and the unwillingness of the doctors to at least repair his skin, all because of...

He sighed. It did not matter. His beloved did not seem to mind his scars. She loved him the way he was.

Slowly, he sat down on the bed, stroking Sabrina's hair as she slept peacefully. "Good night, my dear." He laid down next to her, pulling the sheets up and again kissing her hair. Soon, both were engulfed in their peaceful dreamlands, the difficulties of last night forgotten.

~~~~~~~​

In the foyer, a young woman walked down the stairs so quietly one could think she was floating, yet it was only the experience she had, being used to high heels longer than her whole legs. She had noticed her colleague, and yet she hadn't been interested in making herself known to him, only watching him and his girlfriend with a smirk. Looking around, she made sure no one had noticed her so far; before she went to the computer Sabrina had worked on and glanced over the screen. Will hadn't bothered with turning it off, not even with looking what was up on it. Now that she saw the internet page, Karen knew it had been a mistake. She laughed quietly. He was such an idiot... Yet, this was an awkward story...

Karen sat down, licking her fingers. This would get him into trouble. Because either Lance or Sabrina did not know a thing about this....

End of Chapter 6, Part 2
 

delongbi

I C U
161
Posts
16
Years
I was sooo excited to see a new chapter! Yay!

No, I have not forgotten about the fic. *I* haven't. *cough*

You'd better not!!! Do you know how long we have been waiting for a new chapter?! Well, I guess you do because you're the one writing... Anyway, I love this story; you cannot forget about it!

Sabrina relaxed, feeling much better now that she was outside with her headache being gone, and, most importantly of course, together with Will again.

Awkward sentence. I would change it to something like: Sabrina relaxed, feeling much better now that she was outside. Her headache was finally gone, but most importantly, she was together with Will again.

And just as she had promised mere hours before, she would never read his mind to find out.

Avoid starting sentences with "and." It is unnecessary- just start with "Just..."

"Of course not. Do you think I cared about the newspaper when I was drunk?" she smiled, actually not mad at Will, yet teasing him.

The "she" in "she smiled" should begin with a capital "S."

You are overusing "yet" again- way too many examples to bother putting here.


0_0 Is that a word?

Nya... I think I'm going to stop with grammar issues. It gets too annoying to keep posting down here when I want to read!!!

Will nodded, and yet he was sure there was someone who could...someone he strongly suspected to be an unfair player then.

Cynthia!

"There is no known psychic stronger than me...there were some in the past, hundreds of years ago...but not in the present."

That is just asking to be proved wrong.

Sabrina nodded. "In theory. But not in reality. There are no dark psychics."

See above comment.

Great chapter- well, except for some awkward grammar. I love the mystery you've created! Ahh! I can't wait for the next chapter!!!

By the way, is Will's last name Bender?
 

Psychic*Absol

Psychic Student
2,231
Posts
19
Years
You'd better not!!! Do you know how long we have been waiting for a new chapter?! Well, I guess you do because you're the one writing... Anyway, I love this story; you cannot forget about it!
Well...I have certainly not forgotten about the fic, as I'm still writing it (or, well, will write it once I get free from exams). It's again my beta-reader, but I don't blame him. ^^
Avoid starting sentences with "and." It is unnecessary- just start with "Just..."
Even though my German teacher told me, long ago (lol) similar things, I still think "Just" at the beginning of a sentence sounds even more awkward. o,o
The "she" in "she smiled" should begin with a capital "S."
*gives note to beta-reader* Finding mistakes of this kind is his job. 0=)
You are overusing "yet" again- way too many examples to bother putting here.
And I thought I cut it down...>.<
0_0 Is that a word?
According to my dictionary, it is.
Nya... I think I'm going to stop with grammar issues. It gets too annoying to keep posting down here when I want to read!!!
XD *agrees*
*nods* 0=)
That is just asking to be proved wrong.
It is? 0=) (CPF would *so* like it to be proved wrong, nah, CPF? XD)
Great chapter- well, except for some awkward grammar. I love the mystery you've created! Ahh! I can't wait for the next chapter!!!
XD Thanks (okay, I don't see my grammar as awkward, but then, it's a different language for me...XD). Most of the mystery will be carried over into the next part (=/= next chapter), so stay tuned! XDBut don't worry, I won't leave many secrets open. ;-)
By the way, is Will's last name Bender?
0=) It is, it is...*winks at Wyyrlokk*
 
1,124
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17
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  • Seen Jun 5, 2022
It helps being on the "inside" when it comes to this story... because Cynthia is of course "borrowed" from me. She's not as twisted and evil as my Cynthia, but she has the same basic powers.

I enjoyed this chapter, even if there was not too much Cynthia. Sabrina would sometimes confuse me with her rants, the same way Will was confused, but I liked how Sabrina always seemed to sum up what she meant. That makes things easier to understand, and I like that.

It's pretty clear now that Lance wanted to give the egg to Cynthia but couldn't, the question is, if he wanted to in the first place, why would it be considered stealing if Cynthia had J retrieve it for her? Or did Lance have no control over his mind when he thought about giving over the egg?

Either way, it seems to me that if Cynthia wanted to, she could take over the Indigo League right now because Lance is so helpless. And poor Lucian... out of the picture...

Now you owe me a review!
 
206
Posts
14
Years
  • Seen Dec 21, 2013
So... the plot gets darker and darker. Cynthia's plan becomes uncovered to the reader, and Will turns out to be a child of the lower grades of society (It was obvious to me after he spoke to the gang child and Lucians words about the high ancestry of the other elite trainers, but now it was affirmed. xD). And Sabrina thinks of him as "more than just dumb", that's great. ^^ Sadly, she doesn't get the coherence between the boy robbing the Pokemon Center and Will yet.
(Another hint in this chapter was "'Without payment' He said, wondering if his past ever stop haunting him?"...)

You described the difficult scene with the number and the dark psychos very well - at least I had no problems with understanding what you wanted to tell. xD
 

Psychic*Absol

Psychic Student
2,231
Posts
19
Years
@CPF
It helps being on the "inside" when it comes to this story... because Cynthia is of course "borrowed" from me.
XD It kinda does. (Up to the point that I think our fics are AU of each other...) And believe me, you'll be even more on the 'inside' during the epilogue and the next parts. ;-)
I enjoyed this chapter, even if there was not too much Cynthia.
*hides* I don't even know when Cynthia appears again...oh, wait, screw that. Beginning of the next chapter. =3
And there will be again much of her darkness. ^.~ In every sense of the word.
It's pretty clear now that Lance wanted to give the egg to Cynthia but couldn't, the question is, if he wanted to in the first place, why would it be considered stealing if Cynthia had J retrieve it for her? Or did Lance have no control over his mind when he thought about giving over the egg?
....uh, oh....
I'm sorry to say this, Wyyrlokk, but CPF discovered something we talked about some time ago. You remember the three inconsistences I told you about? Well, CPF just found one of them (and he was faster than you!XD)
Yes, CPF, this is a semi-important plot point. Cynthia has a reason for her actions. ^.~ And it wil be revealed, if I'm not mistaken, next chapter. ;-) (And, surprise, surprise, not even by Cynthia herself...;-) )
Either way, it seems to me that if Cynthia wanted to, she could take over the Indigo League right now because Lance is so helpless.
Yes, Lance is helpless (completely helpless, but again, next chapter you'll see), but she does not want to take over the Indigo League. She wants revenge. ;-)
And poor Lucian... out of the picture...
I know he is shafted...sue me!XD

@Wyyrlokk
Cynthia's plan becomes uncovered to the reader
Not the whole ofher plan or else it would become boring, don't you agree? ;-)
Will turns out to be a child of the lower grades of society (It was obvious to me after he spoke to the gang child and Lucians words about the high ancestry of the other elite trainers, but now it was affirmed. xD
Ah, come on, it was not that obvious. >> Okay, we can agree that we all knew by now that something was wrong with his past, but it was not affirmed that he came from a poor family. He could simply have been a criminal or working for TR or something entirly different. ;-) (And heck, I told you he's kinda a street child, so don't think you're Mr. Holmes!XD)
Sadly, she doesn't get the coherence between the boy robbing the Pokemon Center and Will yet.
Hm, does she? ;-) And second...Bender is a common name in their world (made that up, but hey, my fic). It's as if you read here "The son of a Georg Schmidt..." That doesn't tell you much. And even if your best friend is called Schmidt, would you immideately make a connection? Of course, for a reader, that's easy, because, come on, it has to be a hint, doesn't it? But for a character in the fic, there are hundreds of guys calles Bender and all of them could be meant.

Now, let's hope that Zammy beta-reads faster and I finally find the point where I can split up chapter7, otherwise, you'll have nothing to read after the next chapter. >.<
 

Psychic*Absol

Psychic Student
2,231
Posts
19
Years
*hides from impatient readers* Hey, I did get it up faster this time. XD
Anyway, I'm sorry that I have to correct myself...no real revealing this chapter. >>;;; I mixed something up, the revealing of Cynthia's plan with the Eevee egg comes in Chapter 7 c or d (the one I was writing back then, so yeah, I mixed it up. >.< Sorries.)
Nevertheless, onto the next chapter! (And I double-checked the 'yet' this time, so there shouldn't be so many now anymore...)

6. Chapter, Part 3: Sorceresses

It was a perfect morning. The air was fresh, the sky bright, and spring was getting more and more power, almost dwindling into summer already. It was soon going to be May, yet nights could still get very cold in the mountains. And during these nights, one was happy if he had a warm bed. Even better if one was not forced to sleep alone in an empty bed. Yet, sometimes, the surprise of waking up next to someone was a bit greater than the happiness of it. Sometimes, that ended up as a serious argument.

And sometimes, it was just playful teasing.

"I thought I was sleeping next to a monster!" She laughed so hard, fastening her paces so much Will had to run not to lose her. They were on their way to the dining room, playfully chasing each other over the area of the hotel, a pastime which was really wasting their time, though both of them didn't feel that way. Both were rather glad that they had the chance to be that close for a few more days. Sabrina was not really angry that she had woken up next to him that day. It had only been a shock for a minor time, for the brief flutter of memory where she had seriously wondered what she had been up to yesterday. But then, everything had come up again, from her computer search to her sleepiness. She had given him a summary of her findings, but he had shrugged it off, thinking that if they kept quiet now, Lance would never notice, and there would be a way to dump the egg somewhere. He seemed to be a bit too careless for Sabrina's taste, but his positivity had rubbed off onto her and now, she found herself racing after Will like a mischievous child, not caring about her reputation and just enjoying herself. She could scold him with her worries later. Or never.

"Gotcha!" She cried, grabbing his vest's collar and pulling him closer to her, both ending up in another embrace. Naughtily, Sabrina smiled at her fellow psychic and kissed him, something she now jokingly called 'training', as she still had to perfect her skills at French-kissing.

Slowly, he broke the kiss, smiling at her sympathetically. "Still, there's something I don't understand..." The elite trainer mused, looking at the bright blue sky above them.

"Hm?" Sabrina leaned back, out of his arms, against the empty air. Yet, a slight blue flickering gave her use of her powers away. "You mean about the Eevee egg?"

Will nodded slowly. "Yeah, and about the whole registration mix-up...I mean, why would Lucian and Cynthia not recognize anything that was registered under their name? That does not make any sense..."

Sabrina shrugged, playing with his hands in hers. "Maybe Lucian was acting? Cynthia didn't seem to be surprised at all and Lucian...well, for my taste, he was a bit too excited. Besides..." Sabrina leaned closer to him again, with a questioning, yet mischievous smile. "Do we even know for sure it's Lucian and Cynthia the registration number belongs too?"

Will pushed her away, annoyed, and started to walk to the dining room. "Well, how many even more obvious hints do you want? A Garchomp, Sabrina. And a Lucario. How many of these do we have here in Indigo? Hundreds? I think not."

She stayed were she was, watching him depart. "Exactly. It has to be a tourist. Any tourist. Indigo City gets a lot of these, you know?" It was almost a sarcastic question.

Will rolled his eyes. "Still, isn't it a bit too much of a convenience? Now the only thing we need would be the colours of the women's clothes, and then we would know for sure, you know." He laughed.

Sabrina mimicked his annoyed expression from seconds ago. "Don't make fun of Cynthia's style, as I like it. And anyway, not all Pokemon matched those of Cynthia and Lucian. I can't remember Lucian owning an Espeon."

Will froze. "Lucian's Espeon was on that list?"

The gym leader blinked. She didn't get her boyfriend's reaction, his sudden uneasiness. "Um, yeah, there was a male Espeon on the list. It had arrived a bit later, on the same day as the egg, but it was there nonetheless."

Will looked downwards. He felt dreaded, as if all sunshine had suddenly disappeared, as if time had just spun backwards and it was winter again. Soul winter. He knew that feeling oh so well, it was something he had seen often enough displayed with his girlfriend and now it was his turn. "Cynthia told me about Lucian's Espeon having disappeared, probably being stolen."

Sabrina froze as well.'She fell onto her back, and only managed to push some dark blue cloth out of her view in time to see something lavender coloured jumping through the storeroom window.'

~~~~~~~​

Karen leaned against the wall of Lance's office, her arms crossed, eyes darkening, and this time, it had nothing to do with her powers. She was in deep thought, though her mind was troubled. Lance was acting off. He might have always been a bit paranoid, but in his position, caution was better than casualties. Better having locked your door once too much than one bullet more in your chest. Yet, he had never locked himself off in the office for a whole day. And he had certainly never completely ignored one of his elite's wishes to meet him. He may postpone it to a later date, but never call it off for good, without even suggesting another time or day. This was very unlike old Lance.

However, it was typical for the new Lance. The one that had simply dumped his girlfriend between lunch and afternoon's meeting, the one that had not spoken once to Claire or their relatives since the break-up and had sent back all her belongings via the post and without one word. The new Lance that clung to Cynthia as if he was her newest black accessory.

Karen pushed herself away from the wall, giving up her senseless and fruitless waiting. There was a chance that Lance already knew about this little incident in his employee's earlier life and while she did want to bother him as much as possible, she couldn't if he didn't even open the door. She might give up as well and try to find someone else to drive mad. And then there was still the little 'project' she had taken up...

Just as she was about to leave the hallway, the door did open. But it was not Lance that walked out of it. Lance was not wearing high heels, and he was not wearing a long, black coat. And he was certainly not female.

"Oh, nice to meet you." Cynthia walked up to the other elite trainer, shaking her hand without even waiting for Karen's reaction. The dark trainer just stared at Cynthia, emotionless and body stiff, her hand shaking mechanically. Sinnoh's champ didn't seem to mind, not even to notice at all. Her smile was never pausing, never breaking. "You must be the second new elite trainer of Lance's, dark trainer Karen Schwartz, right?"

She nodded. "Yes, this is correct." Her lips pressed together tightly, she wondered just what had mesmerized Lance so much. Sure, Cynthia was beautiful, but Lance had never been the type to fall for superficiality, not when his whole reputation was at stake, not to mention his relationship with his family, who had made him Claire's destined husband. For the public, Lance had been the clean fighter for morals, even though his money business was not as spotless as he may have wished for. No matter how many times one thought about it and searched for reasons, Lance's behaviour was just not comprehendable.

"What brings you to dear Lance's office?" Karen asked evenly, not showing her deep interest in the topic openly.

Cynthia lowered her head, closing her eyes and playing with one strand of her bright blond hair. "Oh, nothing important. I just wanted to ask Lance if I could borrow his two psychics to do me a little...favour."

"Favour..." Karen repeated, her tongue dancing over the emphasis of the word. She wondered, should she warn the two or was that too merciful? Was there even a reason to worry? About those two? Worry, from her, the dark trainer?

Cynthia looked over Karen's short, black dress, her bare arms and legs and her slender, shining black lacquer shoes. "We seem to have a lot in common, Miss Schwartz," she said, indicating her own favour of the colour.

Karen nodded sourly. "And not only that."

~~~~~~~​

"Sabrina, if you freak out, this is not going to help either of us!" Will cried, trying to follow the psychic gym leader, who had been close to running around in circles in her desperation.

"Will!" she growled. He was way too calm for her taste, way too calm for the way she felt. "Lance is going to murder me! How should I not freak out?!"

Her boyfriend crossed his arms, raising one eyebrow in questioning his girlfriend's sanity. "He is not really going to make that threat come true...is he?"

Sabrina's eyes darkened. "If he's not going to kill me, then he will at least dismiss me and that is even worse!"

Will rolled his eyes. "Oh, yes, that is even worse...." He shook his head. "Sabrina, please, just stop worrying, everything will sort out itself, you know, it-"

"Sort itself out?!?" She started to scream, her voice reaching octaves they had never climbed up before, as the calm, resolved Sabrina had never felt the need to scream at someone, especially someone she normally held so dear. But then, she did. "Will, I am going to get into deep trouble, because it's my fault THAT AN ELITE TRAINER'S POKEMON GOT STOLEN!!" She growled. "It's not as easy to hide as the mix-up, dear Will. There were witnesses- the post office workers-heck, even Hunter J herself might blame me!" She clenched her fists, closing her eyes tightly to block out reality and some unwanted tears. "I was there, Will. I saw Lucian's Espeon escaping... I saw Hunter J following it...if someone is at fault, if someone can even be at fault, it's me. I failed to stop her. So I am going to get blamed if it gets out. And it will get out, as surely as we stand here now. Lucian will want an explanation for where his Espeon ended up, and they will look when it arrived here, and then they'll find out that it was the day Hunter J attacked the post office. One thing comes to another and, whoosh, I'll get into serious trouble, ending up in jail if I get especially unlucky, which I just will." She sat down on the stairs of the entrance to the second meeting room, the very place where she and Will and confessed their feelings to each other. The place now a stage for entirely different emotions. Hiding her face behind her hands, she was close to crying.

Will stood there helpless for a moment, not knowing how to comfort his girlfriend. He did not know about the inner workings of the league, the delicate structures and complexes, as he was all too new to everything. Still, he was sure that while Sabrina was right about it being a tad bit more serious than the egg incident, he didn't think that it was worth crying and worrying over. Sabrina wasn't at complete fault; no one could scold her for not being able to single-handedly take down a vicious Pokemon hunter she did not know a thing about, especially when her powers had been blocked.

"Dear, please, don't cry..." He kneeled down next to her; taking her hands slowly off her face and wiping away the hints of tears that dared to appear. "I promise you...there will be a way out of this. I won't let you get all the blame for this accident. I won't let you go to jail. I won't." He embraced her, burying his face in her hair as he did so, for once admitting his addiction to her plainly. There had been so many women in his life, but for none of them he had felt this much. None of them had been as perfect as his dear. "Even if I have to talk with Lance personally."

"No, Will, no." She pushed him away with a frown, shaking her head. Her tears had stopped, as she couldn't cry when being this close to him and feeling his concern for her, his comfort. She had realized that crying had no real use; she had to give it up. "You don't have to do this for me. In the end, it's something I have to stand up for, something I have to deal with." She smiled, kissing his cheek. "But thanks for promising help. You're sweet, you know that?"

He smiled sheepishly. "I'm a gentleman."

Sabrina returned his smile, stroking what was exposed of his cheek and not hidden by his mask. "You're right, it was wrong for me to freak out so much..." She sighed. "We should try to get some breakfast now, as the others will surely wonder where we are...after being away for the whole of yesterday." She laughed. At least yesterday had been quite...romantic. A whole new experience for her. And incredible experience. She still shivered when she thought about her life before and her life then-her new life, finally filled with love.

~~~~~~~​

Sabrina almost choked with laughter when Misty rolled her eyes and walked out of the room as soon as she saw the couple, Will's arm around her waist and Sabrina's head leaned onto his shoulder. "We must be really getting on her nerves..."

Will laughed as well, kissing her hair quickly. "If she thinks so...I don't see a reason to be annoyed because of showing true love." Erica had already noticed their arrival as well, nodding in their direction and patting Misty's now empty seat.

"Nice to see you two." The grass type gym leader winked at them. "I hope you're feeling better, Sabrina. Will told me last morning that you didn't want to come down for breakfast."

Sabrina smiled at Will before sitting down. "Yes, I am feeling much better." She could feel Will's ease as she said that, knowing that he had still been worried about her, worried that she might not be able to call her mind off the difficult dealing with Lance that laid before her. "I guess I was a bit too tired to come down yesterday, but thankfully, I have a handsome gentleman who is nice enough to bring me breakfast in bed, eh?" Will blushed and mumbled something that stayed unheard.

Erica smiled at that. She had never thought that it would be possible for their seemingly eternal single to find such a wonderful boyfriend. Unlike others, though, Erica was not jealous. She was not interested in Will, not that interested in boys either, and because of that, she was simply happy for her fellow gym leader. Might others disagree with her, she was of the opinion that Sabrina had deserved it.

But as happy as the two now were, Erica wondered how long it would last.

"Getting a boyfriend is not that hard..." she mused, staring at the ceiling with bright, shining eyes. Lance had employed the best artists to paint the walls of their main dinner rooms. "The hard thing is to keep him..."

Sabrina sighed. "Oh, I know how right you are, I sure know that." She glanced at Will, yet he remained silent, feeling still a bit ashamed to have caused his girlfriend so much pain. She patted him slightly on the back, indicating with a comforting glance that she was not angry at him anymore. He answered her gesture with a sad smile, not completely convinced.

Erica shook her head, sadness playing around her delicate features. "No, no, I don't mean the incident with Janine. I mean...you have to go back home in a few days, Sabrina. What will become of you two then? You can't see each other every day then..."

"Um..." Sabrina and Will stared at each, speechless. To tell the truth, they hadn't thought about a solution for that problem yet. While the fact that they had to depart very soon was openly in their minds, they had expelled it from their consciousness enough to not feel the pressure to think of a way to meet again. Sabrina lowered her head. She knew what Will would ask, without having to read his mind at all, and it felt so bad to turn down his idea. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it slightly, shaking her head so slightly that Erica was not able to notice it. <I cannot teleport every day from Saffron to Indigo, Will, I'm so sorry. I wish I could, yet even my powers have a limit and there's a reason I came here with the Magnet Train. Indigo is just too far away of a location for me to teleport.> She looked up, trying to cheer him up with a smile. And still she knew deep inside this smile was just not making up for it, she knew she would feel just as miserable and down as he felt then. They had been very close over the span of a whole month now, not really separated by distance yet, if emotional distance was not counted in. No one knew yet how their relationship would react to this new situation, this loneliness. A loneliness which scared both of them.

Erica glanced over the couple sympathetically, even without being able to really depict the complete extent of their pain; she knew how hard it had to be for the two to realize that everything that was left for them was a weekend relationship and looking at how tight both of their schedules were, even that was a hopeful wish clashing with reality.

Sabrina snuggled closer to Will, her cup of tea levitating in front of her face as her hands were still busy holding his. He stroked her cheek silently, before whispering a few words to her, as he hadn't even started training telepathy yet, so any attempt of his was going to end in failure for sure. "Don't worry, we'll find some way out of this, just like with other problems, hm?" She looked up at him, not really convinced but not voicing her disagreement either. Maybe she was realistic, maybe she was pessimistic. Maybe both.

Erica again smiled at this. She nodded with closed eyes. "Love will always find a way, isn't that true?" The psychics nodded at that, even if just to keep their hopes up.

Several heads were turned around when the door of the dinner room opened and an all too familiar clacker of high heels was heard, echoing off the stony ground. Many faces beamed with smiles at the woman walking in, yet she ignored them as if they were simple air, heading straight for one table, keeping her mysterious, reserved but distantly friendly smile.

Sabrina braced herself already for a catastrophe, unwillingly and unconsciously digging her fingers into Will's vest, causing him to yelp. She apologized under her breath, her eyes still fixed on Cynthia, who headed straight for them. Will, noticing this as well, kept her hidden behind him, ready to take the assault for her if needed. While Sabrina had insisted on keeping her independency, he was a gentleman and he would protect her, even against her will if absolutely necessary.

Cynthia stopped in front of their table, glancing over Erica, who had welcomed her with a silent nod and had now resumed to eating her toast. Sabrina felt the tension of the situation, yet she did not know why. She knew why she was feeling uneasy, but there was something around them that seemed to make her even jumpier.

Will looked around. Just like Sabrina, he felt that something was wrong, but unlike her, he caught the source after a moment. "Erica, would you please?" He asked kindly, with an undertone that told more than a thousand words however. He was not happy about having to shush off someone, but the silent pressure Cynthia managed to put onto them was unbelievable. She managed to get her own seat without even asking. Silently, Will wondered if that was the so called 'endless superiority' every champion called his, or in this case rather her own, but on the other hand, he had never seen Lance acting so offensive. Not even in the years before he became a member of the league, when all he saw of the champion was from TV reports and newspaper articles. And he was pretty sure that the news covered all of Lance's life, after experiencing that pretty much that was the case now with him. He did not hate the media for that, but sometimes, he felt it was a bit too much for his dear, the way she reacted to reporters...

But that was nothing compared to the way she was acting now around Cynthia. Sabrina seemed almost...frightened. She kept most of her body hidden behind his, only glancing slightly around him. Yet Cynthia kept her never ending, mystifying smile. "I hope I'm not bothering you two."

"No, you aren't." Will answered, though it was rather the 'right thing to say' than the 'right answer'.

Cynthia smiled again. "Well, I've come here because I need you two to do me a little favour."

Will frowned. That was as informative as advertisements. "A little favour, I see," he said, letting as little distrust in his voice as he could. It was still possible that Cynthia did not know a thing about either the mix-up of the egg and the statue or the involvement of Sabrina in the case of the missing Espeon, so he did everything not make her suspect a thing. "About what, if I may ask?"

Cynthia laid her head into her right hand, glancing around Will and noticing the uneasy Sabrina, who stared emotionlessly at the wall opposite of Cynthia. "Lucian's Espeon."

"Ouch!" Will yelped when Sabrina's fingers bore themselves so hard into his clothes that it left small marks on his skin. He glared at her, for her behaviour was neither helping his body to stay physically unharmed nor her innocence staying proven. Sabrina glared back just as fiercely and Will winced when she nearly tore his vest apart just with her finger nails, reminding him painfully of who was the stronger one in their relationship.

"What is with it?" The psychic elite trainer asked, forcing himself to ignore Sabrina's actions. He didn't seem to do very well, as Cynthia chuckled each time he flinched.

The Sinnoh champion sighed, an almost unreadable sadness enveloping over her face. "Well, as I told you after our battle, dear Will, Lucian's Espeon did not arrive in time here in Kanto." She closed her eyes. "Now it seems as if it was not only delayed, but also got stolen."

Her fingers were going to leave some marks on his body, that was for sure now. His side would be covered in bruises, not to mention the cuts in his clothes.

"Now, I just happen to know from investigating the post office files that Espeon arrived on the day Hunter J caused havoc there."

Will wondered if his inner organs would survive any more squeezing and how it would look like if he just passed out after having some virtual veins cut off.

"And...well, since you were there, Sabrina, I hoped you could..." Cynthia paused. "Ehm, I don't think it's that comfortable if you break your boyfriend's rips." Sabrina blinked, she had not noticed that she quite close to doing that with, amazing surprise, only her left hand. She had never suspected herself to have that much power.

"No, she's not hurting me." Will gasped, knowing very well that reality was proving him wrong. She was not hurting him, she was abusing him physically!

Cynthia laughed. "Oh, of course not, I see, my sweeties. Love makes you invulnerable." For a second, a split second, anger flashed over her face, as if she had said something that she didn't want to say, something that was too painful for even her to say aloud, yet that emotion disappeared as soon as it came. "Anyway, I hoped you could help me with getting the Espeon back. I'm fairly sure it's Hunter J who has captured it, and since she's a professional, there's a high chance that the Espeon is already not in Kanto anymore, rather shipped somewhere in the world to a paying client." Cynthia bit her lip. "But if there's still a chance that the Espeon has escaped her and is somewhere in these mountains, I know you two could find it. You're both psychics, you're naturally bound to psychic Pokemon, isn't it like that?"

Finally, Sabrina spoke up again, in a voice that was a business as it could get. "Yes, that is right, Miss Mo-, Cynthia, I mean." She corrected herself, reminding herself of the informality promise they had given each other days ago. "Yet...I don't see why you haven't called the league officials. Aren't the police better...equipped for this job?"

Cynthia's face was stony and noticing this, Will felt the impulse to grab Sabrina's hands and squeeze them tightly, too. He knew that Cynthia was psychic, and he knew that she was likely a stronger psychic than him. The only thing he did not know what whether she was stronger than his girlfriend- and hopefully, if worse came to worse, protector, Sabrina. "I did contact the police. Earlier than Lucian, if I may add. He...doesn't seem to care so much about his Pokemon." Will raised an eyebrow. Just two days ago, he seemed to have completely lost his battle spirit because of his loss. And now he wasn't caring about that Espeon anymore? Something was off there...

"Yet, I think that the search might be in fact a success if more people are in it. I hope you're more triumphant than the police, with you actually knowing both the Pokemon we're speaking of, and, of course, also knowing the mountain area where it might roam." Cynthia paused, looking over both trainers. "So, will you do it? It has already been cleared up with Lance, so you don't need to worry about your jobs being at stake if you take a few days off..."

'Really? Our jobs not at stake?' Sabrina still couldn't get over her fear of being accused, so she stayed silent, for the first, and probably also last, time, giving Will the chance to answer for her.

Her boyfriend was just as uneasy as she was. 'I guess our little mountain adventure will only be out of the news when we're already married and retired...' He glanced over her, wondering if she had caught his thought, before remembering that she did not read his mind. Luckily, because the sheer thought of marriage hadn't crossed either mind yet and Will felt nervous being the first one to do so. A sign?

"Well, I guess we can give it a try...can't we, dear?" He looked over his shoulder to glance at Sabrina and thus, busting his probably one and only chance at being the boss. She didn't answer him at first, her eyes fixed on Cynthia, then, she looked back at him. Knowing that telepathy was no use, since Will didn't know how to properly answer, she just nodded. Fortunately for her, as Cynthia had expected such a thing from the other psychic and was prepared for a quick mind reading of the weaker psychic.

"It's settled then." Cynthia stood up, still looking at the two trainers. "I'm afraid I can't give you more information, as I myself don't know where the Espeon went. Yet it should be obvious that there aren't many, if at all, wild Espeon here in the mountains, so if you find one, it's likely to be Lucian's." The champion laughed, but her laugh quickly stopped and she turned serious. "Be careful when you meet Hunter J. As you've already experienced", She nodded to Sabrina," she's as good as a trainer as well as perfect dealing with her gadgets. She'll most likely find something to counter your powers."

"Well, not that hard, considering how weak mine are..." Will joked. Cynthia joined his laughter shortly, before wishing them good luck and leaving. The tension immediately disappeared. Will leaned back with a sigh, causing Sabrina to growl at him and moving out of his way, in the end causing him to fall from his chair onto his back, with his legs still lying on the chair's seat. Sabrina forced herself to smile at his, and yet deep inside, she felt anything but happy.

Still laughing, the gym leader helped him up again, glancing at the other girls in the room and keeping them on distance with a sharp glare. Even with Janine out of the pool of possible competitors, she still had to stay on alert, knowing now that there was an alliance of enemies. She just didn't know any of the members, with the exception of Claire, who was prone to be the leader of the union. "Seems as if the last days of the meeting get exciting again!" Will mused while laughing.

Sabrina sighed, rolling her eyes. Her definition of excitement was not exactly met, even if it was spring then, as she still wasn't that interested in roaming the mountains. Even alone with Will. Societies' advantages just prevailed. Besides, she had enough camping for a whole year. "Let's hope we find the Espeon soon, I don't want to spend a week without electricity and warm water again!"

Will chuckled, standing up and kissing her cheek. "Don't forget, we had warm water."

She glared at him, the memory of the hot spring bath and his, in retrospect now clearly identified as one, advancing on her still fresh on her mind. "For one day..." Sabrina answered sardonically, sitting down to finish her breakfast. Will was still standing next to her, irresolutely. "Come on, sit down and eat. I said that we should start searching soon, but I think after breakfast is soon enough." Will nodded uneasily. He wondered if he should tell her about Cynthia's powers, unsure if it was wise to worry his girlfriend even more. She had certainly not taken the meeting lightly, his hurting side speaking a clear language regarding that, and if there was one thing he did not want, it was to trouble Sabrina any more, not to mention that he didn't want to have his skin cut open by her fingernails in case she freaked out again. Maybe he could snuggle this little piece of information past her until Cynthia and Lucian had left, and then it wouldn't be of any importance anymore. And, who knew, maybe there was no reason for them to confront Cynthia even during her current residency anymore? Maybe the Espeon would be found by the police soon enough for them to cancel their involvement.

On the other hand, Lucian had said that it was Cynthia's goal to create a scandal with the help of the attack on the post office, and now, thinking about it, it seemed to be obvious that mentioned plan was coming into action and Sabrina had indeed a place in it.

Will looked to the side, swallowing his nervousness. Sabrina had been honest with him, and now there he was, plotting on lying to her, or at least withholding a great deal of important information from her. No gentleman would ever do that.

He sighed. He should tell her and he was going to tell her. But not there, it was not the right place. Biting his tongue, he finally faced the psychic again, who had already started to notice his distress, but hadn't asked yet, giving him the time to prepare. "After breakfast...could we go somewhere private? There are a few things I think I need to tell you..."

~~~~~~~​

Silently, the woman stopped after leaving the room, closing the door behind her so quiet that no one inside noticed it. However, she didn't depend on the absence of noise. Everyone had seen her enter, if she had wanted to stay shrouded in darkness and mystery, like usual, one could almost dare to say, she would have done it the right way. Now the only thing that was left for her was to wait. Jenny did not need to know about her new pursuers, nor was there any need for Lucian to know about this change in plan. If she would ever consecrate him, it could wait until their trip to Indigo was over, until the news of their break-up had reached Sinnoh. Briefly, Cynthia wondered why she had forced Lance to take care of any overseas reporters that might have had the chance to spread the news, when she had wanted to embarrass Lucian, to break up with him. When nearly everything she had done there had either the purpose of humiliating Indigo's league or of finally breaking up with the man who cared more about his books than his girlfriend and had managed to ignore her for too long, not to mention that he had 'forgotten' her birthday and their anniversary, just because of some stupid book exhibition...

Cynthia sighed deeply. The more she thought about it, the more hate rose within her. While she did not want Lance to take up the place as her boyfriend, she knew it would do Lucian right to see her happily together with another man. Maybe then he would recognise his mistake. His mistake to disregard her and, in the end, to believe her that she would come back to him. No. She would never come back.

Growling, Cynthia was suddenly startled when she noticed new thoughts rising in the mind of the weaker psychic. He wasn't going to tell...no, he just couldn't!

Cynthia looked back to the door, not sure if she would burst in and stop this flaw in her plan immediately, but then, she relaxed. Who cared if he told her about her powers? There was no chance that she could harm the Sinnoh champ...not as if she would try that, anyway.

Cynthia ran one hand through her hair before closing her eyes and walking down the stairs in silence. It was unlikely that those two would ever bother her. It was a bit sad, though, as they seemed to be such a beautiful couple, and if her plan went on correctly, they would be the main focus of all the blame. It was pitiful.

Cynthia looked back, swallowing. Maybe it was more than just pitiful. Maybe it was wrong.

~~~~~~~​

Sabrina had heard and experienced a lot in her life already, especially a lot of myths and rumours regarding psychic powers. She had thought she had literally seen everything, but after the conversation with Will, she had to calm herself down for a moment and settle her thoughts, not to mention her standing up hair. She hadn't told Will, but she was not only surprised, but also slightly scared. Normally, she could feel the presence of every psychic around her, at least if said psychic had knowledge of his powers and was able to work with them, reason why it taken her so long to notice Will's powers. It had a lot to do with subconsciousness and awareness, and the fact that before his intense training, Will's only ability had been a teleport of inanimate things, a skill so tiny that it could slip her mind. After all, when one was around other, weaker psychics all day, the mind could get used to the constant presence of other sources of powers. Maybe that was also the reason why she hadn't felt Cynthia's powers before... No, Sabrina shook her head. That was not the explanation. She had tried to identify the champion's mind from all the others, as soon as Will had told her about Lucian's revealing, but it had been a fruitless attempt. And that meant either that Lucian had lied, or, and Sabrina started to shudder, that there had finally been one psychic found that was stronger than her.

She was scared.

Startled when Will put his hand on hers, Sabrina looked up. She had been nervous already when he wished to be alone with her, even more nervous when he had invited her to the little restaurant from earlier again, and just ordering coffee for both of them, with Sabrina resisting and insisting on having tea, again. There were just too many kinds to choose from there, especially the special teas produced in the mountains...

But she had never expected her whole view of the world to be shaken.

"Will, this..." She let one hand run through her hair in a nervous fashion, tousling and splitting the ends even more. Sabrina shook her head. "This is not good. Not good at all."

"I've expected this." Will sounded much calmer than she was, but he didn't know about the pecking order in the psychic society. Sabrina had been the leader until then, without doubt, yet, if one psychic stronger than her had truly been found, that position was in dire danger. Sabrina gulped. She just couldn't let that happen. She had trained for so long, literally gave her soul for the authority over Saffron's gym and its psychics, she would not give up that easily. Hadn't Will said that Cynthia had kept her powers hidden from the public? Now why had she done something that peculiar? It didn't make any sense...

Will shrugged. He had wondered about it, too, but he had assumed that it was simply a quirk to keep paparazzi away, as the Sinnoh champ had most likely enough of those already hushing around her. However, that didn't make much sense either, as Sabrina had proven that she could very well keep the majority of reporters away with exactly those powers, as most unwanted guests knew she had a special treatment for films. He should ask her how the trick worked, Will mused inwardly.

Sabrina shook her head. This was getting way out of her hand and sadly, she did not know any way out of it, either. They had promised Cynthia to search for Lucian's Espeon now and even knowing that everything was probably a farce, leading to something more dreadful, they couldn't just snuggle out without a good explanation. And there wasn't any.

She sighed. "Well, I guess we just have to wait and see now."

Will nodded, but something was still on his mind. Something that then, at least in his opinion, made a lot more sense. It was just a question of whether Sabrina agreed with him... "Now that we know that Cynthia is psychic...how much bigger did the probability get that she indeed mind-controls Lance, hm?" He allowed himself a smirk, a rare sight for someone as polite as him. At the same time, he couldn't fight the feeling that his curiosity and mistrust had triumphed over Sabrina's rationality.

Sabrina sighed, suppressing an angrier growl, swallowing it with a sip of her tea. "They didn't get any higher, Will. I already told you what is needed to control Lance the way he is right now. Complete knowledge of all of his actions, thoughts, behavioural characteristics, etc, etc... you can't seriously tell me you believe Cynthia has a book of miracles in her suitcase where every scene in his life is written down, telling her what he would do, say and think. Please, Will..." She rolled her eyes. "Stay sane."

"Not easy around you and all of that psychic stuff." He winked at her, weakening his words with a well-placed sip of his own coffee. "Although..." He turned serious again, facing her directly. "Isn't it a bit weird that Cynthia is psychic, has a plan to ruin Indigo's league and then, boom, our champion turns unreasonable? Not as if he was before, but this just took the cake, didn't it kinda?" Will paused, looking at his nearly empty cup. "Not to mention that Cynthia is again directly involved. It's her who Lance hanging around now. And well, you said that a psychic who has control over someone needs to stay around him all day, and that is what Cynthia does right now, isn't it?"

"Lance wasn't around when we met her in the dining room..." Sabrina mused, not able to hide her smile.

Will sighed, putting his hands behind his head. His girlfriend was right, Lance hadn't been with Cynthia back then. But then again, hadn't Sabrina also said that any hint of the former relationship would destroy the efficiancy of the dark attack? And maybe Cynthia had viewed the risk that one of them would have mentioned Claire- not to mention that said woman was seated in the same room as the one the conversation took place in, as being too high, and so, she hadn't taken Lance with her. On the other hand, that meant that Cynthia had to be a dark psychic indeed. And that was just not possible. Or at least Sabrina thought so. But she had also not noticed Cynthia's powers, so there was a chance that she was now wrong again...

He blinked. Just now, it had crossed his mind that he had forgotten to ask about one particular important detail. One that he was quite sure Sabrina knew about, no matter how dark the matter was. "How do you get somebody mind-controlled, anyway? What's the technique behind?"

Sabrina snickered. She really had to snicker, each time she started this lesson with her students, no matter what time it was, or what students she had sitting in front of her. And it wasn't different either with her boyfriend sitting opposite of her. "Well, both mind-control and mind tainting require intimidate physical contact."

Will blushed and Sabrina literally burst out with laughter.

"Oh, dear, of course that does not mean that said persons have to sleep with each other." She snickered, putting a finger to her lip and teasing him with her winking. "Though I have to admit it is one efficient way of getting somebody under mind control, though if you can gather the necessary concentration during these antics, I doubt it..." She continued to snicker. "A simple kiss is intimate enough."

"Okay..." Will couldn't suppress the shudder that went down his spine, not to mention how uneasy he felt around the topic. If a kiss was enough...

He sighed helplessly. "We'll start searching for the Espeon tomorrow no matter what. It's not as if we have another chance, right?"

Sabrina nodded, not commenting the sudden and unexpected increase of self-assertion of her boyfriend.

End of Chapter 6, Part 3
 
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  • Seen Jun 5, 2022
I'm happy to see lots of Cynthia in this chapter. Apparently she wants to pay back Lucian for some reason, although I don't ever remember Lucian doing anything to her. That's just typical of her, though.

It seems all is set up for Sabrina and Will to clash with Hunter J, that's where this is headed, I think. Right now I am wondering most about Cynthia & Lucian's relationship and how that will turn out... hopefully for the best.
 

Psychic*Absol

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^.~ Think back of how Lucian treated her during the first chapters (you know, with ignoriring her beauty and his general behaviour), and then, re-read this "of finally breaking up with the man who cared more about his books than his girlfriend and had managed to ignore her for too long, not to mention that he had 'forgotten' her birthday and their anniversary, just because of some stupid book exhibition..."
Cynthia is angry at Lucian because he kept ignoring her and let their relationship go down the drain, so that's why she wants revenge. ^^

Yep, you're right, there's gonna be at least one fight Will& Sabrina vs. Hunter J. ^^
(I'm quite surprised that *you*, of all people, worry about their relationship, considering what you wrote in your fic...*coughs* 0=) )
 

delongbi

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I think Sabrina overreacted just a bit, lol. I almost started yelling at my computer when I Will was considering not telling Sabrina. That would have been very pooh-headed.

Cynthia looked back, swallowing. Maybe it was more than just pitiful. Maybe it was wrong.

Whoa. Cynthia, feeling regret? Where did that come from?

Something that kinda bothered me was Sabrina's very different reactions to bad situations. She pretty much explodes when she thinks she will be blamed for losing Espeon, when it seems incredibly unlikely for others to even blame her. Then she takes Will's explanation of Cynthia relatively well.

Other than that, decent chapter. Keep up the writing! :)
 

Psychic*Absol

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I think Sabrina overreacted just a bit, lol. I almost started yelling at my computer when I Will was considering not telling Sabrina. That would have been very pooh-headed.
XD I noticed that, too, that's why I changed it in the end (originally, Will wasn't going to tell her and it wasn't suposed to be revealed to Sabrina that Cynthia's psychic too until the next part.)
Whoa. Cynthia, feeling regret? Where did that come from?
=3 Well, my Cynthia unlike CPF's still has some human features.
Something that kinda bothered me was Sabrina's very different reactions to bad situations. She pretty much explodes when she thinks she will be blamed for losing Espeon, when it seems incredibly unlikely for others to even blame her. Then she takes Will's explanation of Cynthia relatively well.
Hm, I can see your point. Though I think if Sabrina hadn't taken Will's news that easily, she would have broken down completely, and now that wouldn't have been good at all for my fic. >>
And is it really that unlikely to get blamed? She's a psychic, a gym leader, and she couldn't stop a Pokemon hunter who didn't have any Pokemon with her (and who, besides Sabrina herself and Cynthia knows that Hunter J has a device that can block psychic powers? =3 Nobody, that is.)
Other than that, decent chapter. Keep up the writing! :)
^^ Thanks. My beta already has the next chapter, so yeah..it should be up sometime this century....
 

Psychic*Absol

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*coughs* *does not comment* ...bad thing is, I'll be on holiday for the next week, so the next chapter might be even more delayed. >.< Sorries. But heads up, we're coming closer to the final AND the end of this fic. XD (If that's a good thing...)

7. Chapter, Part 1: Pursuit

It was already late at night when Will finally went to bed. Sheepishly, he glanced at the side when he opened the door. Two days earlier, he had spent the night in the very room next to his, and the night before, he hadn't spent the night alone. But today was a usual night, as today, nothing extraordinary would happen. Sabrina was already sleeping peacefully, and although she had apologized nervously, he didn't mind her sleeping in her own bed. After all, that was how it was meant to be. They weren't that close yet. He giggled quietly. Maybe that would come soon...

Sighing and rubbing his slightly burning eyes as he went into his own hotel room, Will did not notice the shadowy figure that was leaning against the wall. Its wardrobe did not give away its identity, as all it wore was black and nothing. Its hair shined silver in the pale, fading moonlight, its face and eyes unreadable and cold, just a finger with a long fingernail tracing its lips. It moved as gracefully as an elf as it walked through the room, to Will, who had not noticed it yet and so, foolishly, turned his back to it. Moreover, he was sleepy and his attention span was short, his mind nearly in dreamy state already. So he couldn't even scream when a hand clamped over his eyes from behind, his body turning around violently as a pair of lips closed over his own.

~~~~~~~​

Sabrina took a deep breath, feeling the fresh, and already warm spring air over her skin. It was early in the morning, just a bit over 6 AM and no one else-at least none of the other gym leaders-were awake, though she had seen both Lance, Cynthia and Karen lingering around the halls, all more or less awake and not all that interested in talking with her. The only one she had hoped to see awake and had yet been not awake was Will. She had to get him out of bed herself, surprised by the fact that his hotel room door had been left open, not forcing her to teleport into the room. He had been still lying on his tousled sheets, half buried under his cushions, still in his usual clothes. Sabrina giggled at the memory, as she leaned out of the window, waiting for Will to get dressed again. Apparently, she had tired him out a bit too much last evening...

A slight tapping surprised her and she turned around to see Will leaning in the door frame, his arms crossed over each other, eyes closed and looking thoughtful, unusually thoughtful and serious. She raised an eyebrow, but kept silent. Both of them had every reason to be careful that day. Who knew what Cynthia planned on doing? It was unlikely that she would resort to physical violence, rather using psychical weapons. Maybe in every meaning of the word.

"Can we go now?" Sabrina asked politely, snuggling to his shoulder. Will opened his eyes and smiled at her, stroking her cheek with a single finger.

"Well, I have indeed packed, so yes, we can go." He hadn't brought much, as both of them hoped that they wouldn't be searching for more than a few days, not a week, like the last trip into the wilderness had lasted. After all, just like last time, they did not have endless amount of time. Cynthia and Lucian were going back to Sinnoh in a few days and then, the case had to be finally closed, whether they had found the Espeon or the police had. Sabrina closed her eyes. Someone had to find it in the end, that much was obvious. Otherwise...well, if Lucian's Espeon truly stayed lost, and the knowledge that this had happened in Indigo, because of an Indigo gym leader became public... Sabrina shook her head. No, she didn't even want to know what would happen to her then. Maybe this was indeed the scandal that Cynthia had wanted to cause. Yet then, it wouldn't make any sense for her to employee her and Will, of all people, to search for the Espeon. If this had truly been Cynthia's plan, she would have kept silent about it, at least as long as there was a chance that the Espeon might still turn up. No, this didn't make sense at all.

But like Will had said yesterday, it wasn't as if they had a chance to change anything anymore. It was all a question of fate and coincidence.

Will coughed politely as they went to the stairs and stopped. Sabrina, surprised by this behaviour, stopped as well, staring at her boyfriend's back. First, he stared downwards at his shoes, unsure if he should address her, hesitating for a long time, before he finally turned around and faced her. "I know that this mission is quite important for you...that we have to find this Espeon or else you get into trouble...so...I asked one of my colleagues to accompany us. You know, the more the merrier."

Sabrina just stared at him. To say that she was surprised would be a great understatement. She was rather shocked. She didn't want anyone to accompany them. It may be foolish and kind of hypocritical to think of this trip as another chance for them to be alone for a while, to spend some time just as a couple, when in the end, much depended on it, all of it being a rather serious business with a champion involved. Yet...was it wrong to wish for closeness? To live your feelings out? Sabrina felt betrayed and at the same time, she felt guilty. Maybe Will was right...

She sighed. "Well, who did you bring?"

Will smirked at her. "Someone who can take care of psychic Pokemon just as well as we do...in every meaning of the word."

Sabrina blinked at his words, but when she heard the weak tapping of high heels from down the stairs, she braced herself for an unwelcoming welcome. Since she doubted that Will would actually be as foolhardy as to invite Cynthia for this camping adventure- Sabrina doubted that any spoiled champion would survive in the woods without his personal servants-it meant that the only other known high heel lover of the league would come with them. "My, you psychics sure get up lately. Had a lot of work to do last night, hm?"

Karen.

Sabrina couldn't hide her growl. While she was getting used to Karen's general presence, that was no reason to stretch her endurance that much. A darkling...what had Will been thinking?! Of course, Karen could take care of psychics...meaning that it was easy for her to knock them out. And not only Pokemon, human psychics as well. Will had just brought the one person that Sabrina was sure of was dangerous to both of them. If not for her frivolous attitude that might awake her long hidden feeling of jealousy, then for the team of dark Pokemon she most likely carried with her.

"You don't mind her hanging around here, do you?" Sabrina raised an eyebrow. Did Will just lose his common sense or what? If it wasn't obvious from her tensed, stiff body, then for the fact that she just kept standing away from both Will and Karen, who had walked up the stairs to meet up with them.

Clenching her fists, Sabrina took a deep breath, looked up and sighed. It was useless to argue now, as after all, Karen had obviously no intention of leaving them anymore, and Will, being the trigger for this unexpected twist of happenings, was no real help for her arguments, either. He would probably just accuse her of being biased and selfish. Of course, he hadn't been a psychic for so long, so he wasn't afraid of darklings like she was.

His shoulder didn't hurt each time she remembered the fangs of a Mightyena.

"Well, I'll stand her for the time being." Sabrina mumbled, maybe a bit darker and angrier than she had intended. Better to not irritate the darkling too much, for she could overpower both her and Will easily. Maybe it hadn't even been Will's fault. He was too much of a gentleman- and had too less of a backbone to deny a woman's wish, and Karen could easily blackmail him, as easily as she could blackmail Sabrina herself. The situation had ended in a stalemate, at least for two of them.

"Fine, then." Will actually smiled, making Sabrina fume silently even more. "Let's go, no?" He smiled at both girls and took Karen's arm, shocking Sabrina even more, who did not really feel jealous at first, just rather off surprise and being catapulted into the wrong scenario.

"What?!" She was even too surprised to scold at Will, having frozen in place as the two elite trainers walked down the stairs.

"Well, are you coming?" Will asked, turning his head around to see and wink at her. Sabrina blinked, staring into space and really not getting what was going wrong again. Just being sure that something was wrong.

"Yeah, hm, I am coming..." She mumbled, following the two with a slight distance, body stuff and mind on alert, keen on observing Will a bit more than usual.

~~~~~~~​

From her hotel room, a lone, beautiful woman was watching. Her eyes, grey and lifeless, were staring straight at the three trainers walking into the woods, two of them walking next to each other and chatting happily, the first easily to be recognised by his formal clothing, the second by the complete opposite.

And then there was the woman following them, trudging slowly and appearing to be a bit miserable, a mood noticeable even from the distance that kept the woman apart from the group going on a new adventure.

Cynthia bit her lip, wondering if she should interfere. She had not expected another darkling to be around; neither had she expected said darkling to get in the way of her plan. Yet... Cynthia closed her eyes, walking away from the window and waiting in the shadows of the curtains for a moment. Karen was not hindering her. She had her own plans. Obviously. Glancing back at the three, the Sinnoh champion wondered how much more the young love of the psychics could take before it would break apart.

Shrugging, she sat down on the bed again. She had taken enough humiliation from Lucian. Maybe she should advise Sabrina to do as she had done. She didn't wish for another woman to be broken because of men.

~~~~~~~​

Sabrina knew how it felt to be excluded. More than half of her life, she had been excluded. Always because of her powers. Always because of the mysterious things she could do, mysterious to those who never tried to get to understand them better. If it hadn't been for her powers, if she hadn't inherited them from her father, she would have been a usual girl, a normal girl living a normal life, going through normal puberty, getting a boyfriend, a job, maybe as a psychologist or at a grocery store or as a journalist or something along those lines. But she had her powers, and had trained them night and day, and thus, she had been different from everyone else and everyone else was scared of her. Too scared to dare to go near her. So, Sabrina supposed she shouldn't be surprised by the feeling of hurt from being excluded again.

Just that this time, it was people like her excluding her. People with supernatural powers of their own.

Granted, Karen was no psychic, but darklings abused psychics in other, dreadful ways, not in this highly social way. She supposed it was in their nature to be a bit blunter and, well, darker. Karen had revealed herself to be not only frivolous, but also as impolite as one elite could get without being rocketed out of the office the moment she took a step into it. And worse, the person she had believed to be more disgusted by this more than ever didn't even care.

Of course, she was talking about Will, for she, while having taken on as much politeness as needed, too, was strongly bothered by Karen's behaviour. And so, in conclusion, about Will's as well.

He had started to ignore her. During the first day- yes, they were already on the walk for more than a day, but Sabrina had started to lose her sense of time again. It hadn't been so noticeable, yet now, the loneliness started to bore itself through her heart and soul, hurting her. It was not jealousy that she felt- she knew that for sure, as the feeling she had towards Karen was different from the one she had had when she had seen Will celebrating together with Janine after their double battle. This feeling was more like deep anger, deep mistrust and the inner feeling that something was wrong. She was only unaware of what was wrong. Aside from the obvious fact that Will was spending more time with the darkling then with her now.

It was only talking. Nothing more. Maybe that was why her jealousy hadn't kicked in, Sabrina could only speculate. Jealousy wasn't a feeling she was used to. For all of her former, emotionless life, she had failed to grasp the concept of ownership, because she had not seen the value of material things. Of course, she had been, well, kind of obsessed with a few things- her doll collection came immediately to mind. But aside from it... She had never felt the need to long for other people's belongings, their wealth...yes, she had taken the Fighting Dojo's gym leading rights from them, but that was nothing physical. And if there was one thing that she could have felt jealous about, even back then, it might have been psychical strength, but only that.

In conclusion, she had never really learned to be jealous and only now, when something existed that she really held dear, something unique, something she didn't want to lose for all in the world, she suddenly had to deal with jealousy. Another new emotion on her ever going list that was giving her so much trouble and made her wish herself back to the old times, when everything was just an easy game of authority and training.

Sabrina shook her head, watching the two as they decided- they alone, for the third wheel on the bicycle had been long forgotten, to take a break at a small clearing. It was a nice, sunny day and if there hadn't been the small detail of being a group of three, Sabrina mused she would have enjoyed this very much. Instead, she stared at the two elite trainers, observing them as closely as she could without grabbing their attention. It was getting warmer every day and she had trouble with the sun shining directly into her face, though she could clearly see the conversation on the other end of their resting place. Again, her instincts told her something was wrong, but she could not figure out what. Her first impulse was to assume that something had been done to Will, but she could not think of what that might have been and who might have caused it. Surely not Karen, who was, strangely enough, acting a bit off, too. It was not usual for her to talk so friendly and casual to a psychic. Sabrina tensed. Maybe it was not only one of them being manipulated, but both. In that case, she had to be very, very careful indeed.

Sighing, the psychic came to the dreadful conclusion that her list of problems was growing with every day she spent there in the Indigo Plateau. First, it had been acceptable emotional trouble, for while her crush on Will had indeed caused some inner tension, that strain had been more positive than anything. Then the stay in the hospital and a month-long coma. Not all that good for her already shaky health. The psychic ran her hand through her hair. The mix-up of the egg and the statue seemed to be a minor problem now and still, it had high priority. That probably meant she had been in a state of continuous alert for almost a week, a strain certainly not good for her nerves. If the alcohol hadn't killed her brain cells, this had. All counted in, it was a surprise she hadn't faltered yet, but maybe, just maybe, Cynthia was right with her assumption about Sabrina's stamina.

"Will...Karen..." The gym leader started, well aware of the fact that the chances of them actually listening to her were slim. There was a topic that had to be discussed, no matter how unfriendly the response might be. "I don't think it is beneficial for us to keep on wandering aimlessly around. I...admit that it is a bit hard to search for a Pokemon without any real clue, but..." The psychic hesitated. She had no confirmation yet that her comrades were listening, but if she waited for a verification, she might as well spend the whole afternoon waiting and staring into space. Or rather into the faces of a man and a woman opposite of her, the former being still very much in her heart, the latter being the stick in her heart, and their friendly talking nearly destroying her heart.

"We cannot just continue it this way. It's no use. It's already been more than a day and we haven't found as much as a clue of the Espeon." Sabrina stood up and took her cup of tea, as thankfully, with her obsession with the beverage; she knew enough about herbs to make her own, of course non-poisonous and even well-tasting one. She didn't know what Will and Karen were drinking, but she wasn't caring for one half of the duo, anyway. And the other half should theoretically know how to get poison out of his body, but with training being the last thing on his mind for a while...

"So what?" Karen smiled viciously at the other psychic, one hand hugging her hip, the fingers of her other tracing Will's neck who had followed Karen's gaze over to the gym leader, keeping a stoic, calm face even around the obvious flirtations of the darkling. "It's not as if Cynthia and Lucian cannot leave without this Pokemon and get it sent on later." Karen grinned. "Or do you think a little delay could cost your head? How sad...I wonder how well you would fare as a psychic without your most important organ, the brain, isn't it? Sad that you depend on it so much... the outside counts, too, it sure does, little Brina." Sabrina rolled her eyes. She knew what Karen meant, but hell would rather freeze over than her wearing clothes of the same 'category', if that was the right word, as Karen's.

That, or other...

Sabrina shook her head. Now was not the time to think of future plans.

"Sorry to prove you wrong, Karen dear," Sabrina bit her own tongue when saying that, and yet forced herself to mimic Karen's snicker, though she herself had no real idea, just a dim feeling where the sudden need for competition came from. "But I fear the consequences of the Espeon staying stolen are direr than you can imagine. For once, it's not only my head that may roll..." Glancing uneasily at the side, Sabrina wondered just how much she could tell these two, given how friendly Will was suddenly with Karen. "It could also cause the whole of Indigo some trouble."

Karen raised an eyebrow. "You mean because Cynthia might blame it on Indigo?" The darkling smiled. "Oh, don't look so surprised. I know all of your little theories. Your boyfriend has quite the loose tongue, my..."

Karen was right, Sabrina looked surprised. Very surprised. Her eyes wide open, her face pale, her fingers grasping onto a small branch of the log she was sitting on, she could only describe her feelings with one word. Betrayal.

Will had told Karen all about Sabrina's hypotheses, about her speculations and, worst, her fears. Her fears of this turning out to be a matter of political affairs, of national wide importance. Of it working itself up to a greater dispute between Indigo and Sinnoh, maybe even with rumours of all of it planned out by Indigo turning up. In a world where Pokemon battling was a legal and an accepted way of making money, where the strongest ones held more political power in their hands than the elected governors and mayors, Pokemon were no more pets, but weapons and, to a degree, capital, a stolen Pokemon was more than a peccadillo, the very reason why Team Rocket kept being the number one threat for Kanto, aside from their obvious hunger for power, of course. And now it concerned the Pokemon of an Elite. Sabrina couldn't even imagine the consequences of this, and she didn't really want to, either. She just wanted this to be over as soon as possible.

"Will..." Sabrina glared at the other psychic trainer, wondering what was up his mind. He had changed and Sabrina was fairly sure that this change was not natural. She just had to find out what had happened.

He stared at her, cold, emotionless, and yet there was a difference between him and her former self. She couldn't put her finger on it, couldn't name it, but it was there, like a cloudy shadow hanging over him. Sabrina frowned. Maybe there was more behind this description than met the eye...

"Why have you told her this? I thought we would keep this secret..." She sounded...well, she sounded offended. She had thought she could trust him. Could she now? Or was it not his fault? Her fingers were trembling.

Will sneered. "I see no need to keep my secrets from someone I can trust." For s split second, he glanced over to Karen, and Sabrina thought she noticed a small glimmer in both of their eyes. "And Karen has shown me that she is trustworthy."

"Trustworthy..." Sabrina sighed. Whoever thought that Karen, of all people, was honest had to be very naive...well, nothing new considering it was Will... "I hope you know what you're doing, dear..." Closing her eyes, the psychic stood up to throw some more wood in the fire when she froze, her senses picking up a change in the direction of the wind. And before she could grasp the situation, all three of them were startled by the sudden storm forming over their heads, leafs and dirt circling around them after being picked up by the wind. Sabrina hid her face with her arms, afraid of being hurt by little stones that were now in the miniature tornado as well. Fortunate for her, she didn't see Will holding Karen in his arms to protect her.

After a few seconds, the wind was not the only thing that grabbed the attention of the three trainers. The noise of an engine, getting louder and louder, and the unusual sound of something sucking in air were around them, or rather, above them. Sabrina glanced through her closed hands at the sky. She could only see dust and in-between the brown cloud, something darker, something almost black.

"I don't want to question our luck, but don't you think it is a bit unusual for an airship to appear in the middle of nowhere?" Karen asked, her voice fighting to gain enough power to reach Sabrina's ears, as Will was next to the darkling and hadn't any trouble hearing her.

"What do you mean?" Sabrina hoped her own voice was strong enough to fight the growing wind, because for once, she was really interested in Karen's thesis.

"Well, how big are the chances that this is Lance's newest plaything? Not high, I think, in contrast to his bank account and ego size. And who else has an airship that big and modern? Only our dear J, at least from what I could gather from her international arrest warrant."

Sabrina couldn't hide her surprise, though hating herself for giving away a degrading emotion in front of the darkling. "International police forces are searching for her?!" 'And you've looked at the files?' She didn't voice her second question, for it would give away her own lack of knowledge of the matter behind. She had neglected to do any research on their enemy, however, Sabrina wasn't even sure anymore if J was their, or rather, her main enemy.

Karen nodded, her hair whipping around her shoulders wildly. "Well, she's been on the public enemy list of Sinnoh for god knows how many ages and was recently added to Johto's one. I think that counts as being internationally searched for."

Sabrina, ignoring the sharp edge in Karen's remark, shuddered at the sudden light that had started to shine over J. She was certainly not a newbie villain, nor was she to be underestimated. 'As if my problems were too small for fate's taste until now...' The psychic mused miserably.

The airship had soon left the space above their heads, yet it was clear that it was going to land, considering how low in the air it had been. This, in conclusion, could only mean one thing: J was still searching for the Espeon as well, as otherwise; she would have no reason to leave the safe air space. Besides, she was still in Indigo, not having dashed off to wherever her client was seated, so apparently she hadn't managed to catch the psychic Pokemon.

Sabrina started to run, wishing she could teleport right to the landing location of the airship, but finding herself to be unable to do this. One reason, of course, was the presence of Karen, but thankfully, the elite trainer had at least the grace to lower her own abilities a bit, which allowed Sabrina to be free of any headaches and shivers caused by dark power.

Still, she hoped for Karen not to own any Mightyena...

"My, my, you like to get into the action soon, don't you?" Karen laughed, her arm still clung around Will. She had been momentarily startled by the sudden departure of the psychic, but had covered it soon with a laugh and a playful toss of her silvery hair.

Sabrina turned around. As much as she hated having the dark trainer around, it was better to have some awful assistance than none at all. "That might be the one and only chance we have to get a hold of her, so we're better not wasting it." She directed this at the two behind her, as they were far behind her already and didn't seem to have any intention of following the psychic soon. Sabrina hadn't really wanted to take the role of leader there, as she had wanted this to be an extended date exclusive for her and Will, and had, in no way, anticipated Karen's coming along. Then, if everything had happened according to her planning, there would be no reason to really worry about the person in charge. And no, not because it was clear that she would dominate over Will...

Karen glanced over Will, tracing his lip with her sharp, black fingernail. "We should better go and save her backside in case she gets herself into a mess again, shouldn't we, my dolly?" Will nodded without words.

~~~~~~~​

Slowly, the woman sat down, blinking as she adjusted her shining black sunglasses. In truth, they were not only sunglasses, but a device filled with so many gadgets that any spy movie agent was about to get jealous. Silently touching the right side of the metallic frame, a holographic map, blinking in neon green, appeared in front of her cold blue eyes. Quickly, she scanned over the map covering nearly all of Indigo Mountains, lines of the blinking light detaching themselves from the artificial level they had created and forming into valleys and mountain peaks. The 3-D picture was not complete, as her henchmen hadn't managed to download all of the needed material from local satellites yet. Illegally, of course. Satellite maps of Indigo City were not open to the public because of the league headquarters, and she didn't even bother with asking for them kindly because she knew, even though she wasn't as well known there as she was to Sinnoh's upper class, someone would do his or her research and find out. Better let the dirty work be done by someone who was renounceable, like her henchmen.

Hunter J, or 'Jenny', as her by far closest client liked to call her, much to Js indignation, ignored the gaps in graph, concentrating of the little white blinking spot that moved slowly over the plain, following what seemed to be an even smaller spot of purple dirt, although it was in truth the psychic signature of a particular special Espeon. Special because it had been raised and evolved in wilderness, never been forced to follow a trainer's order, never even been touched by a human's hand. That was, until she, the greatest hunter ever known to Sinnoh, had caught it in the deep, inaccessible wood of Ilex Forest, and pocketed quite the nice amount of money for it from the champion of Sinnoh. J closed her eyes. While all that mattered to her was the money, she had truly started to question her client's motives. Whereas a wild Espeon was as rare as a silver Eevee and such, the general value of it was not to be enquired, it was more a question of why it was so important to the champion of all people. J could imagine an endless amount of paying clients that would have loved to get the Espeon, clients that had a reasonable want for it, breeders or collectors came to mind, yet she couldn't imagine why the champion with her already well-trained, full team of six monstrosities had wanted it so badly. So badly to go out of her way and cooperate with probably the second most wanted villain in Sinnoh, only next to the mysterious unknown leader of Team Galactic.

And it was not only cooperation, it was...more.

J squeezed her eyes shut, shuddering inwardly at the sheer memory of the events that had happened...what, only half a year ago? It seemed as if everything had just been a day ago, and then, her whole life being thrown into a loop, one she hadn't managed to get out of even then. She had never been out of Sinnoh, and in a matter of six months, she had been to both Kanto and Johto. The only region missing was Hoenn now, and knowing Cynthia, it was only a matter of time before J would be assigned her first mission there. And it was useless trying to prepare for that special assignment, as J had the feeling that Cynthia had more various ideas than the usual eccentrics she worked with. Which was saying a lot, considering what background J worked with.

J blinked. Next to the white circle, or, more exactly, right beneath it, another purple spot, though significantly smaller than both the white one and the first violet one, had appeared, an equally small black spot next to it. J frowned, but even someone who might know her well- honestly said, there weren't many that could fall into this category, that wouldn't have noticed the gesture from afar.

The woman stared ahead, going through several scenarios in her head. She hadn't been expecting any interruption; at least Cynthia had promised that no one would disrupt her, something J had not doubted. If the champion wanted something not to happen, said thing just wasn't going to happen, and if she wanted earth to stop rotating. The obvious- no one without a serious aim would venture into those woods, involvement of these people- a psychic and a dark one even, was unexpected.

J leaned back, though her body stiffened, her fingers playing around the lonely Pokeball at her left side. It was a miracle she had managed to get all of her Pokemon back, but again, she had to thank her unwanted lover for it. Cynthia had not only used the police's trust in her, but also the naivety of her boyfriend who had volunteered to take care of the Pokemon for the time being. Astounding that he believed in her that much, after they had broken up under more than mysterious circumstances, but again, this was only a trivial detail on J's mind. Insignificant compared to the thorn in both her heart and mind at the thought that she had seriously needed Cynthia's help to get her Pokemon back and complete this mission...

"Harry?" She spoke up, her voice confident and cold, demanding. The pudgy man saluted as fast as he could, almost knocking his hat off his head. "Get me the off board camera. I want to take a look at the intruders." He nodded and within a few seconds, with the simulation her glasses produced still on, J looked down at the main monitor in front of her seat, the picture as clear and full of details as if she was hanging out of the ship and watching the three with her very own eyes, though this method was a lot more safer.

J's eyes widened. She recognised the people down there, all of them, not only the one she had already met before. Of course, the one she had already encountered was the psychic gym leader, who hadn't proven to be so much of a threat, just a bit more annoying than her usual enemies. The other two...they were more likely the ones to worry about. J hadn't really bothered with reading all of the local newspapers, just the articles that obviously concerned her, and yet she wasn't in the dark about the new elite four trainers William Bender and Karen Schwartz. She had seen them in the yellow press magazines her henchmen enjoyed to read. Most of them writing about Karen though and the ones with Will just read by those henchmen that were a pain to keep.

On the one hand, J was glad to know who she was dealing with. On the other hand, it didn't make her job any easier. Just harder.

Clenching her fists, she remembered the fight with Lucian. Her poor Pokemon had been beat down, hadn't had any chance against the better trained ones of the elite four trainer of Sinnoh. Yet, that had been a battle without her, and her, let's call them technical advantages. Slowly rubbing over the sleek metal of her bracelet, she knew she had the moment of surprise there. These three didn't know about the little toy of hers, only about the necklace that blocked psychic powers. That should be enough to overwhelm at least one of them, and J was sure the other two, the elite trainer especially, would prove to be challenging on her/his own. Though...only as long as their Pokemon weren't bronze-coloured shiny statues in her collection for sale.

Closing her eyes, J stood up. "Land the ship." She opened her eyes again, them being as cold as humanly possible. "I'll deal with them."

She wouldn't allow anyone alive to ruin what may be her biggest coup.

~~~~~~~​

Sabrina could hardly hide her frustration as the small group of three finally reached the airship. Since it had high-performance engines, unlike them with their tiny, flimsy legs, the distance it needed for landing was longer than the one they could walk in the same time. And so they would obviously end up too late if J had indeed found the Espeon and this was her reason for letting the airship land. All of this would have been no problem if she had been able to teleport. But because of a certain darkling, she couldn't, and so, they lost precious time. Yes, she couldn't deny her bias, she couldn't deny her hate, hate that had only increased because of Will's strange behaviour around Karen, but so far, the only thing she could blame on Karen was the weakening of her powers, not the sudden coldness between Will and her. For that, she had no proof.

And right now, she had no time for it.

A strong gust of wind blew her backwards and she had to hide her face yet again from sand tbehind her, both clouded by the grains of sand. And then, silence.

Silence, except for the odd flapping sound of a pair of wings. Sabrina turned her head around and almost jumped back in surprise when she saw a woman, a woman well known to her, standing on a Salamence. She had appeared as if out of thin air, as if she had teleporting powers of her own, yet Sabrina doubted that. She would have felt J's powers and even if there were some she had overseen- after the experience with Cynthia, it was frightful and still possible, Karen was to make sure that any powers were blocked, from friend and foe alike. Sabrina tensed. To J, it didn't matter whether Karen was there or not, as she could block the psychic's power anyway. That was a clear advantage for her. On the other hand, she had lost against Lucian in a Pokemon fight, and now, it was not only one elite trainer against her, but two. Plus a gym leader.

Who wished that she was hopefully neither ignored nor left alone to do all the dirty work on her own.

J stared down at the three, stiff, her right arm hidden at her side. Without another word, she withdrew two Pokeballs from the hidden pockets of her coat and didn't even bother with throwing them far, just letting them reach a certain distance over her head, where all of them opened at the same time, red light exploding in front of the faces of the league trainers. Two Pokemon, tall and monstrous, stood in front of them, all ready to attack. Sabrina braced herself. She didn't know Drapion's type, as it looked a bit like a poison and/or bug type, but she wouldn't put her luck on it. Ariados, while being a Bug and Poison type for certain, had ghost attacks and so, was still even a threat for her. And Salamence was, without doubt, Dragon and Flying type, so her best try was to focus on that Pokemon, yet that would certain prove to be a bit more difficult, since Salamence was the very Pokemon J stood on. She wouldn't give it up without a fight, as that would mean giving up her main defence. Not to mention that loosing Salamence would mean for J exposing herself to the attacks of their Pokemon, plus loosening the clear status advantage she had, as she stayed up in the air, barely reachable for them.

She could hear a wicked snicker behind and glanced backwards to see, unsurprisingly, Karen hugging her hip with one hand, the other holding a Pokeball up. "You want to bring it on the hard way, girl, don't you? Then do it, right now."

Sabrina sighed. Getting Karen excited sure was easy.

J closed her eyes. "Very well." Glancing sideways, Sabrina noticed an unusual reflection in J's sunglasses, one that was physically not supposed to be there. She did not have the time and chance to investigate in any further. J nodded silently to her two Pokemon on the ground and both of them jumped forward, ready to attack. With the teeny little detail that neither of the league trainers had a Pokemon out yet!

It should have been an obvious strategy, especially after everything they got to know about J's cruelty, or at least what information Karen had gathered. Yet it still seemed to be so unbelievable that a trainer would order his Pokemon to attack another trainer on purpose, something forbidden by law since the very first days of Pokemon training, that they, in their foolhardiness, didn't expect it. But the only rules that applied to Hunter J's morality were her own, and she had none.

Knowing that she was in the first row of the attacks, so to speak, Sabrina did not try to run back. Instead she dove forward and just as she had expected, both Ariados and Drapion were too caught up in their massive attack that they couldn't stop to meet, or rather, kill her in midair. Even more, it gave her the chance of attacking J directly, instead of having to fight her way through the two Pokemon, who were taken care of anyway by Will and Karen, or at least she hoped that was the case. She had her doubts about the reliability of these two now, but she had no other choice than to trust them enough to let them guard her backside for the moment. If Karen and Will decided to flee and Drapion and Ariados decided that she was the easier target, which she certainly was, trapped between J and two of her Pokemon, then there was no chance to get out without an unbalanced battle. An unbalanced battle she could very likely loose.

"Come out, Umbreon!"

"You too, Jynx!"

Well, at least they weren't going to let her go down.

~~~~~~~​

J frowned as she was about to order her Salamence to take off into the direction of the wild Espeon. Her plan hadn't completely worked out as planned, as one of the three trainers had avoided the obvious battle request and had managed to pursuit her directly. While J was sure that she could easily shake her off with her Salamence's speed, her simple presence opted the danger of her discovering the Espeon first, and there was the possibility of her owning other Pokemon not of the psychic type, which wouldn't be affected by the necklace then and in conclusion a real danger for her Salamence. While it was strong, a gym leader's Pokemon was just as strong, too. And the real trouble was still behind and most likely to put up a good fight, too.

"Kadabra, Confusion! Get her down!" J bit her lip in frustration. Just what she needed. This woman really was risking it. Irritating her. And getting both of them in danger. Better put her out of commission sooner than later.

"Salamence, Leer." There were only so few attacks she could use from her position without jeopardizing her life, but she didn't just want to use her bracelet just now, trainers were known to freak out and do irresponsible things if they saw their Pokemon in true danger. Not that J cared much about a trainer's life, but if she had the chance to cause as little uproar as possible, she would rather do that. She had promised her client to get through this as smoothly as she could.

"Kadabra, Barrier!" The shining plate of energy deflected Salamence's Leer easily. J let a small surprised frown glide onto her face, she hadn't expected that Kadabra to be that strong. Nevertheless, it wasn't likely to deflect a dark attack that easily...

"Salamence, Bite!" J stabilized herself on the back of her dragon Pokemon, as this attack required physical contact with the enemy and Salamence could only achieve this by diving down with her on its back. But J was used to that; she had managed to stay on during much more complicated flying manoeuvres. The danger was a constant part of her life as a hunter, and yet she had chosen this way of life on her own, never doubting it.

So, she didn't even stagger in the least when Salamence's mighty body nearly made contact with the earth, then it turned around sharply, blowing a whole wall of sand into Kadabra and its trainer's face. Immediately after distracting them that way- though it was nothing more than a play-off and not a serious attack, which was coming now, it turned around again to face them, this time, opening its huge mouth, showing its sharp, long, dragon-like horrendous teeth.

Sabrina was frozen, completely frozen. Never in her whole life before she had experienced the consequences of a trauma, but in this very moment, in this unfavourable moment, she couldn't move a single muscle, but simply stare at the throat that was going to be her end. She didn't know that she was going to die; there was no single thought in her mind but the clear, painful memories of the events that had happened barely a bit over a month ago, with nearly the same attack tearing apart her shoulder, phantom pain making her unable to move.

But thankfully, she had a saviour.

Not the one she might have originally expected, but it was better than nothing.

'Kadabra!' Sabrina blinked, a brownish shadow jumped in front of her eyes, intercepting the attack with its body. The force of the Bite attack, though, and Kadabra's natural vulnerability to it, sent it into the next tree, knocking it out immediately. Sabrina turned slowly around, her fingers still shaking uncontrollably, the fear still in every cell of her body.

"Kadabra..." Finally realizing that the Pokemon had sacrificed itself for her, to keep her from getting injured. While that had been a general good idea, Sabrina was now defenceless. Defenceless in the meaning that Haunter was anything but a decent fighter. And she didn't dare to attack J psychically, for the consequences of the last attack were still fresh in her mind and her orthopaedist's bill.

Still, this wasn't going to stop her. If she managed to prevent J's misdoing now, it would maybe cost her a few more nerves and sinews, if not, it would cost her the head and in comparison, the head was a tad bit more important than some inflammations.

Turning around, she got ready to jump. Maybe her reflexes and strength and balance weren't as good as J's, but she had the luck of the unprepared and desperate on her side. At least she believed so.

J stared at her coldly. "Salamence, Dragon Claw!"

Until the silver glowing claw of the dragon hit her side.

Surprisingly, the claw didn't slash her open like an overripe tomato, ripping her flesh and inner organs out of her like feathers out of a cushion, splattering blood all over the place like an eccentric painter did with the colours over his canvas.

No, she could feel something sharp in her back, cutting her clothes and leaving small, red lines over her shoulder blades, and the impact of the attack sending her flying back onto the ground with a painful thud, but nothing more. It had hurt, no doubt, and she was sure she wouldn't question J's cruelty anymore, blaming her dumbness for this, but at least she wasn't dead.

Just a bit dizzy.

Closing her eyes tightly to regain a more accurate view of the world around her, Sabrina wondered why the little colourful stars were coming from seemingly nowhere. Realising that these stars were anything but real, she opened her eyes again just in time to see Hunter J flying away a high rate speed, her back to her.

Slowly, she raised herself up from the ground, one hand rubbing the aching back of her head, the other steadying her body. Or, at least, trying to, as this was the arm connected to her hurt shoulder and she felt an incredible pang of pain as soon as the force of her whole body hit the arm's muscles and she nearly broke down again. With tears in her eyes and her teeth biting so hard into her lips that she feared they would bleed soon, too, she gathered her concentration. And heard some footsteps behind her.

"Nice of you two to finally turn up." Not even trying to hide the bitterness in her voice, Sabrina turned around with still half-closed eyes. The pain blocked her rational thinking, her manners, for the moment, she was just p...irritated. Heavily irritated.

"Hey, we had to fight with J's other play toys, you think that was easy?" Will turned his arm behind his back, smiling nonchalantly and uncaring. He didn't even try to help Sabrina up, despite the fact that she was still kneeling in the dirt, her left arm shaking with pain. "They put up quite a fight..."

"Ah, just like you did, eh?" Karen grinned, seeing the condition Sabrina was in, her dirty clothes, partly ripped apart, the blood on her back and the dust on her face and arms. Sabrina feared she wouldn't be too off with the assumption that this actually turned her on in some weird, twisted way.

"Oh, yes, just like I did." Sabrina grumbled. She didn't want to make a fool out of herself with saying that she actually tried to jump onto J's Pokemon as well, without even really knowing what good it would do to her- surely she could not start a box fight on top of a flying Pokemon, one that didn't even belong to her. Maybe she was getting a bit too desperate in her attempts to catch Hunter J. She was only desperate in getting her head and job saved, in the end.

"Feels good to give everything in for a fight, doesn't it?" Sabrina couldn't tell if Karen was being sarcastic or not, as everything that did not include the word 'death' didn't seem to be serious coming from Karen, and even then, there was a 50/50 chance that she was just joking morbidly again.

"Oh, yes, it does indeed feel good." Well, at least the psychic knew she herself was indeed joking. Psychics were not made for physical fighting, and she, the fragile porcelain doll, was the best example. It wouldn't take long until her arm was so severely injured that they would be forced to undertake an operation again just to keep it functioning. She didn't want that to happen, and yet, her actions proved her intentions wrong. But what was an arm compared to your head?

Sabrina looked up, into the sky where Hunter J had taken off. Then, turning serious, biting down the pain in her arm, she turned around to her comrades. "Come on, let's follow her."

Karen waited for a second, before nodding to Will. He mimicked her gesture and then the chase after Hunter J began again.

~~~~~~~​

Cynthia played with the mobile phone in her fingers, sometimes touching a button without intending to touch it, sometimes hesitating to call a number, to push the little green phone button. In theory, everything was planned out. In theory, her plan was perfect. In theory, she had no morality, no emotions.

In reality, she wondered just what she had destroyed by letting things go. Let things simply flow next to her, only controlling what affected her directly. And Karen's little input didn't. Not at all. And still, she felt guilty. She knew about it, and she wasn't going to do a single thing about it. She was going to watch in delight how these two would finally break up, how another woman would break down because of love. Just like she had. She was not as strong as she seemed to be. She was a goddess of the night, yet even goddesses could be hurt. Myths were full of heartbroken Aphrodites. All of this had to be done because of her pain. And pain it would cause. Just more and more pain.

Cynthia sighed, running a hand through her long blond hair and staring at the black, shining display of the mobile. It would be so easy, way too easy, to call the reporters in, to tell them an exclusive story about Lucian's stolen Espeon, her affair with Lance, and why Indigo's league was to blame. That was the plan, wasn't it? It was the perfect moment. The three elite trainers lost there out in the woods couldn't do a thing about it, and were helpless against her power of influence. And yet, she hesitated. She, the one who was never unsure, hesitated.

Cynthia closed her eyes and put the mobile down. She would see how this played out. There was nothing else she could do.

Stalemate.

End of Chapter 6, Part 1.
 
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  • Seen Jun 5, 2022
The end is near, isn't it? Let's go into what I liked and didn't like about this chapter.

Liked: The love triangle that has Sabrina on the outside of Will and Karen. Not that I've got anything against Sabrina or anything... It's just fun to watch.

Didn't like: The lack of violence when Salamance attacked Sabrina. Come on, P*A, we can handle a little violence here and there. Even if it means Sabrina's back getting RIPPED APART!

Hated: The "weak" side of Cynthia shown at the end of the chapter. I don't like seeing my Cynthia show her weaknesses.

Of course I enjoyed the chapter, don't get me wrong. So, when do you want me to write the next chapter of my story?
 

Psychic*Absol

Psychic Student
2,231
Posts
19
Years
The end is near, isn't it? Let's go into what I liked and didn't like about this chapter.
If you call about 5 chapters 'near'...that's about how many chapters are left. XD!
Liked: The love triangle that has Sabrina on the outside of Will and Karen. Not that I've got anything against Sabrina or anything... It's just fun to watch.
*No*, of course not....
Didn't like: The lack of violence when Salamance attacked Sabrina. Come on, P*A, we can handle a little violence here and there. Even if it means Sabrina's back getting RIPPED APART!
>> Now, could I kill my main character before the story's over? Seriously...
You *will* get violence *hinthinthint*, and it will involve Sabrina. In both ways.
Hated: The "weak" side of Cynthia shown at the end of the chapter. I don't like seeing my Cynthia show her weaknesses.
...my Cynthia has her weak sides, too. You'll see them, you'll see them...she's not as perfect as she claims.
Of course I enjoyed the chapter, don't get me wrong. So, when do you want me to write the next chapter of my story?
As soon as it's ready? =3
 
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