Greninja took ten steps past the wall, before stopping in horror. His friends were confused by his sudden action, until their eyes adjusted to the dull moonlight. All around them buildings were burnt and bashed in, showing obvious signs of a struggle. The group slowly began to sink further into the wreckage of the ghost town, passing even more damaged buildings and various dark patches that was most probably from dried up blood. Rosemary was unfortunate enough to get a look inside a roofless house and see the petrified remains of a family huddling together, the parents now trying to protect their children for the rest of eternity.

"This is horrific." Rosemary said, sickened by the sight she'd just seen.

Martin stopped walking and picked up a small object at his feet. It was a half burnt toy soldier that some child must have dropped in the chaos of what happened here. Martin looked at the toy with pain and sympathy. "This is war, it roars throughout the years and leaves nothing but travesty in its wake."

Martin placed the toy soldier in a shallowed patch of dirt, laid more earth over him and marked the spot with a stone from the damaged wall; essentially giving him, and to an extent the fallen Pokémon of the city, a proper burial. The group held their heads bowed in a moment of silence, after Martin's completion of the soldiers grave, before moving on to accomplish what they came here for.

They moved relatively silently throughout the city, with the only real noise coming from Ziva calling in artillery support whenever they happened to spot a group of guards they couldn't get around. The group managed to make it to Saru's castle in just under an hour, a  considerable achievement considering they had to deal with at least two dozen guards along the way. Their scuffles with the guards hadn't caused them any serious injury, but between the climbing, running, and fighting, the group was starting to tire. They still had a job to do though and pushed through their weariness, and into the castle, where sixteen surprised guards were waiting.

"Greninja, need some help over here!" Lector shouted as five of the guards rushed him and his brother.

"Little tied up at the moment!" Greninja called as he delivered a right hook to one of his four aggressors faces. "Ziva! How are you holding up!?"

A Shadow Ball flew out from a corner of the room, shortly followed by a flash of red and black as Ziva charged past three of the guards. "I've been better!" She shouted before shooting two more Shadow Balls into the ceiling above the guards on her tail, causing debris to fall and knock out two of her pursuers.

"On your six!" Rosemary shouted as she kicked away a guard that was about to turn Greninja into a shish-kabob. "Thanks for the save!" Greninja said as rolled away to avoid a nearly fatal downward slash. Back on his feet Greninja reengaged his two remaining opponents. Slashing, stabbing, punching and kicking, Greninja fought his opponents to tooth and nail; leaving them little more than two badly beaten humans laying out cold on the castle floor. Not wasting anytime after his victory, Greninja took a quick survey of the room before jumping in to help Martin and Ziva fight off half of the remaining ten guards. The three of them made short work of their five guards, and turned to help the other three just in time to see Johnson take a knife to the ribs.

"GAAAH!!!" Johnson bellowed as the blade sliced through his flesh. The guard who'd stabbed Johnson quickly pulled his weapon free from the Pokémon, and was about to take the fatal shot, when Lector grabbed him by his neck and chucked him out the nearest window. The man may have screamed as he plummeted out the window, but none of the Pokémon heard him as they were to focused on keeping Johnson's insides inside.

"Lector, there's an orange tackle box in your bag; hand it to me." Rosemary said urgently as she held her hands over Johnson's wound, applying as much pressure as she could to stem the bleeding. Lector began fumbling with his bag, struggling to open it as his brothers blood coated Rosemary's hands and dripped to the floor. Eventually he managed to get it open and quickly passed the orange box out to Rosemary.

As soon as she had the orange box, Rosemary began properly treating Johnson. She first had Greninja take over in the task of stemming the blood loss, having him use a gauze pad instead of his hands. Then she cleaned the blood off her hands, put on a pair of plastic gloves, and took out the: antiseptic, (more) gauze pads, bandages, a syringe, and a clear bottle of liquid with an odd depression on top. Rosemary checked on Johnsons wound and was satisfied enough with its slowed blood loss, that she poured on the antiseptic. Johnson's wound instantly began fizzing up as the antiseptic cleaned out most of the dirt and bacteria. Rosemary then placed a fresh gauze pad over the area and wrapped it with the bandage, leaving it loose enough so he could still receive blood flow to the area.

Johnson looked slightly paler than he'd been a few minutes ago but was still in one piece. "Thanks Rosemary. You saved my life." Johnson said as he tried to rise, only to wince and return to the ground.

"Your welcome, now hold still." Rosemary said as she partially filled the syringe with the liquid in the bottle. She then inserted the needle as close to Johnson's wound as she dared and injected him with the substance. "That was a small dose of morphine, to dull your pain." Rosemary said as she packed up her remaining supplies. "It's only going to last for a little while and I'm not going to give you much more once it wears off. But you should be able to move, with assistance, now."

Johnson's nodded his thanks, as Lector hugged Rosemary. "Thank you, you saved my brother." He said as he clung to Rosemary's neck.

"Yeah, your welcome and everything; but we seriously need to get moving. There's no telling when the next group of guards is going to show up and Johnson is in no condition to fight."

"Awe come on, I'll be fine-" Rosemary gave Johnson a severely disapproving glare that dared him to finish his sentence. "-staying in the back where it's safer." Johnson said, submitting to his doctors orders.

Martin and Greninja chuckled at Johnson's complete one-eighty, as Lector helped him to his feet. Lector then slung his brothers arm over his shoulder, supporting half of his weight as they made their way deeper into the castle. Martin took point, knowing the castle layout better than most, and lead them to the very center of the castle where they faced a new problem.

The center of the castle was a large hallway that branched off in eight different directions, including two that went up large railed staircases. Looking left and right, it was impossible for any of them to know which way held their trapped friends.

"Martin, any idea which way we should go?" Greninja asked as Ziva hopped up onto his shoulder.

Martin frowned in thought before acting rather peculiar. Martin began jogging in place, glancing behind him every few seconds, and mumbling sharply to himself. Lector and Johnson didn't seem too phased by Martin's action, but the same could not for the rest of the group who stared perplexed at the bouquet Pokémon.

"Martin?" Ziva asked from a top Greninja's head, "What are you doing?"

Martin stopped all of his odd actions and smiled cunningly at Ziva. "I'm using the information we've got to reenact what I think Shula would have done when the castle came under attack."

"And has that helped you figure out which path we should take?" Ziva asked skeptically.

"As a mater of fact it has... sorta."

"Sorta?"

"Well, I have it narrowed down to two places she would have gone. She'd either head for the throne room, where there's only one accessible entrance that she could have guarded on a twenty-four hour basis; or she'd head to the castles inner sanctum, down below, for the same reason as the throne room."

Greninja and Ziva looked impressed with Martin's deduction, but frowned at the realization of his findings. "We're going to have to split up, aren't we?" Ziva asked rhetorically.

"Seems so." Greninja said with a smile. "You wanna be in my group?"

"That depends; are you headed for the throne or the sanctum?" Ziva asked with a sly smile.

"Good question. Hey Martin, which way leads to the throne room and which leads to the inner sanctum?"

Martin pointed to the left staircase, "That way will take you to the throne," he then moved his arm to the nearest doorway on their right, "and that way has the nearest access point to the inner sanctum's tunnel."

Greninja nodded understandingly, and picked up a leg from a broken table. He marked two sides of the leg with an X shaped scratch and the other two sides with a Y shaped cut. "It lands on X I go to the throne, lands on Y I head down to the sanctum."

He then tossed the wood into the air and waited for it to fall. It hovered in the air for a brief second before falling back down, clattering three times before coming to rest on the floor. Ziva jumped down from her perch on Greninja's head and examined the wood.

"Huh, I guess the two of us are going to the throne room." Ziva said casually, as if she had been planning on heading there regardless of where Greninja was going.

"Make that the three of us." Martin said with a smile.

Greninja grinned and looked at the remaining three members of their group. "I guess that means you three will be investigating the sanctum; unless anyone else would like to join us?"

"Nope. I think you three should be able to handle anything up there." Rosemary said putting extra emphasis on the word should.

"Yeah, alright. Stay safe." Greninja said as he made his way up the left stairwell. Rosemary smiled and nodded, "Likewise."

Martin and Ziva quickly followed Greninja up the stairs, and soon found themselves moving at a slight jog through the upper floors. Martin eventually took the lead, and navigated them through a series of winding corridors, dead ends, and empty rooms; before stopping in front of two solid mahogany doors engraved with images of strange Pokémon Greninja had never seen before.

Curious about the designs on the doors Greninja got a closer look, and realized he had seen Pokémon similar to the ones engraved in the wood. Above his head was a Pokémon that looked similar to the land tortoise Pokémon Torterra, but had an oddly shaped head and the design on his shell was different than normal Torterra. Looking a little lower Greninja saw another grass type that he vaguely recognized; Shiftry, a stocky bipedal Pokémon that had leaf fans for hands, long pointed nose and ears, and a long fur like material that grew around its head, obscuring its face and piling around it's stilt like feet. This Shiftry also had some changes that differentiated it from normal Shiftry. It's fur seemed to be more mane like, and it had a the same pattern on its forehead that the Torterra had on its shell.

Greninja curiosity reached a peak, when he saw a Pokémon that looked strikingly similar to Martin, engraved on the part of the door that stood directly in front of him. He turned to Martin, eager to find some answers to this odd artwork, and was about to ask when he heard an aggressive voice pass through the wood. Listening more intently, Greninja heard the voice ranting on about Saru being weak and lacking the will to rule properly, including some of the classic villain line of "now that I'm in control things will be different," into his rant.

It was so painfully obvious that the owner of that voice was a villain, that Ziva cringed a little as they continued to listen to him speak. Martin was cringing too but his action seemed to be mixed with some anger and sadness on top of his disgust. The three Pokémon had just about heard enough of this voices villainous monologue, and were just about to leave, when they heard a woman speak out against the first voice.

"You may have taken our kingdoms throne, but you wear not its crown nor can you command its people. You are no ones king." A loud slap followed the females outburst followed by a heavy thud as she hit the floor. In the short time between the outburst, slap, and the thud, Greninja saw Martin's face go through a complex series of changes; starting at relief and joy, then transitioning into shock, that developed into anger, which quickly flourished into burning rage. Barely a millisecond passed between the sound of the female voices body hitting the floor and Martin punching the left door off its hinges.

A stunned silence fell throughout the throne room as half the door lay broken on the palace floor, the only sounds coming from Martin panting wildly and from Ziva and Greninja, who had decided to peak their heads around the remaining door. Inside they saw twelve Pokémon, eight that were tied up on the floor and four that were staring at Martin in silent horror. Of the twelve Pokémon one of them looked a great deal like Saru, and was undoubtedly Shula; the only problem was that she was one of the eight captives and that she was laying on her side with a frightened Pokémon standing over her.

The Pokémon above her was a bug type known as a Kricketune, he looked somewhat like the genetic offspring of a cricket and an Englishman; having both antennae and a bushy mustache. His arms were shaped similarly to bows, used on strings instruments, and his torso looked strangely similar to a red, black, and bashe guitar with two short feet attached at the bottom. He had two large black insect-like wings on his back, and he looked like he was more than ready to use them to fly for his life.

Martin glanced down at Shula for a brief second, exchanging a look of relief with his bride to be, before fixing his eyes onto the Pokémon standing above her, his arm still raised after he'd slapped her.

"Greninja, Ziva." Martin said in a voice that was teetering on furious.

"Yes?" The two ask timidly.

Martin turns to them with literal flames in his eyes, "You can take the other three if you want, but Yeltsin is mine!" He says fiercely before charging the cricket Pokémon.

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Hope you guys enjoyed the past two chapters, I probably won't publish again for a bit because my school is starting up again. I will still try to publish every now and then, but I'm taking tougher classes this year and I have to focus more on them.  Also the next chapter is delayed because of my failures as an artist, I completely goofed an image I've been working on in photoshop and I really want/need it to be in the next chapter.

Anyways I hope this news hadn't bummed anyone out and thanks for being understanding of this development. Thanks for reading.🙂

Shoutouts:AMOURFOREVER_65 AlyssaHardesty1 AmiyaJones jey032001 Amourshipper444 amourarourus & Ash-GreninjaGirl 😁