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The first thing Alder notices upon entering what could only be described as a throne room is Reshiram.
He had seen Zekrom, of course, obeying the prince’s orders and tearing through Alder’s team with the fury of a mythical dragon of legend that once nearly destroyed Unova. But he had only seen Reshiram in paintings and pictures.
Reshiram, like its counterpart, was massive, in both size and presence. It looms in the frankly massive space, majestic in its snow-white form. Alder can’t help but stare for a minute.
But then Alder notices the second thing; something—no, someone—pinned under its claw. Based on the aggressive shouting and cursing, he would say it’s Ghetsis.
With a calm he doesn’t quite feel, Alder walks over. Reshiram has the villain pinned under one massive clawed foot. Not enough to hurt, based on the shouting the man is doing, but enough to keep him from moving.
“Let me out!” The man shrieks, his gaze focused on the dragon. Ghetsis finds him a moment later, and his face twists in hate. “Call it off, now!”
“I’m not its hero,” Alder says matter-of-factly, hands crossed in front of his chest. There’s an unconscious Hydregion nearby, by the cane the villain carries around with him.
Technically, as Champion, he has the power to arrest someone. But he doesn’t exactly carry handcuffs or zip ties on him and Reshiram seems to have the situation handled, so he turns his attention to a different matter.
“Where’s Hilda?”
Ghetsis, despite being pinned under a dragon five hundred times his size, manages to smile. It’s disturbingly vile.
“That little wretch won’t be a bother to anyone anymore.”
That’s not exactly comforting. Alder narrows his eyes, and opens his mouth to reply.
Above him, Reshiram snorts, lowering its head down so Alder gets a face full of hot air. When he looks up, Reshiram looks to its right, as though trying to look beyond itself, and snorts again.
Alder follows its gaze. Feels his heart skip a beat when he sees two figures on the left-most wall.
Thumbing his Pokeball, Alder releases his partner. While they weren’t at full strength after his battle with the Prince, a few potions should keep them going for a time.
“Watch him,” he tells his Volcorona. He doesn’t need to say who. Sunspot lets out a cry of agreement.
Slowly, he picks his way over the rubble of the throne room, rubble he can only assume came from a battle between the two legendary dragons. He doesn’t see Zekrom now, only Reshiram, and he hopes that’s a good thing.
Unlike the trail of blood on the floor.
Alder’s throat bobs as he sees it, dark splotches of red staining the ground. At the end of it he sees N and Hilda, up against the wall.
N looks to be holding Hilda, as all he can really see is her thick mop of brown hair. She lays on her side, pulled into his chest, and Alder can see blood trailing down his hands, rips in Hilda’s jacket.
For a moment, he wonders if the prince is asleep, but as he draws closer, he realizes he’s wrong. Alder sees N’s eyes flutter open, and he gasps, holding Hilda closer to his chest. He attempts to scramble backwards, but he’s already resting against the wall and then N lets out a cry of pain.
Alder holds his hands up in a sign of peace. “Woah there, kid, it’s just me. Just Alder.”
N’s right leg looks to be broken, twisted under him at an awkward angle that makes Alder wince in sympathy. The other one is pulled up to his chest, as though trying to protect Hilda.
“S-stay away,” the prince hisses, although there’s more pain than authority in his voice. “Get back.”
What happened to them? Alder thinks, forcing down his panic. Both of them were fine when I saw them last.
He has a feeling Ghetsis had something to do with it.
“Hilda!”
Footsteps echo in the chamber, and Alder turns around to see Cheren bursting into the room. The boy looks around wildly, until his gaze lands on Alder and he runs forward.
“What- what hap- happened?” Cheren skids to a stop in front of Alder, panting between words. Alder can’t say he blames him—his knees are aching something bad after all those steps. “Where’s-“
Cheren’s eyes drift behind Alder’s shoulder, widen, and then Alder is being shoved aside as he bolts forward.
“Hilda! Arceus, what-?!”
Alder whirls around-
“Stay back!”
Before Alder can do anything, N’s other leg kicks out, getting the boy in the stomach. Not enough to hurt, but Cheren lets out a noise of surprise and stumbles back.
“Don’t get any closer!”
Alder manages to catch the boy before he hits the ground, though he stumbles to his knees in doing so. Cheren is stunned for only a moment before he starts shouting.
“What in Distortion- What are you- Hilda!”
Cheren jerks forward in Alder’s grasp, but he manages wrap his arms around the kid’s chest and keep him from moving.
“Wait, just hang on,” Alder says, looking between Hilda, N and Cheren.
“Hang on? Hang on?! Alder, Hilda- she’s-“
“I know,” Alder says, putting all the adult authority he's used on Benga in the past when he’s being rambunctious that he can. They’re about the same age, and Cheren seems like he could listen better than Benga. “Listen, I don’t know what happened, but you need to calm down, okay?”
Cheren glares up at him, but he stops fighting, and Alder cautiously lets him go, ready to grab him if needed. But he doesn’t move except to glare at N and cross his arms over his chest.
“What happened?” His voice is more controlled than N’s, but there’s still a childish waver to it. It makes Alder’s chest twist.
“I- I don’t-“ N twitches, shudders as his broken leg moves involuntarily. He has both his arms wrapped around Hilda, one gripping her shoulder and the other disappearing under her side.
Alder squats down, regrets it when it makes his knees ache, and stands up again. “Hey, N, we’re not going to hurt you,” he says calmly and softly as he can. “Alright? We just want to help.”
N’s eyes flick over him, shockingly silver and alert despite the blood around them. Alder sees his Adam’s Apple bob.
“F-Fa- Ghetsis, he-“ the prince starts, then stops, eyes flicking down to Hilda, still held in his arms.
Protectively, Alder thinks, frowning at the wild look in N’s eyes. Like an injured Pokemon, hiding from anything that could harm him. Or Hilda. It’d almost be cute if the situation weren’t what it was.
As it is, all he sees is a scared, injured and probably abused teenager protecting another hurt teenager.
Though Alder doesn’t know what happened, a picture begins to form itself in his mind. Hilda, winning. Ghetsis, angry at the loss, at the failure of his son or pawn or whatever N was to him. Taking it out, somehow, leaving the two of them injured.
Next to him, Cheren is tense, stiff as a board even as he tries to recover his breath. Alder rests a hand on his shoulder.
“Cheren,” Alder says calmly, and Cheren looks down at him. “I need you to do me a favor.”
Cheren’s eyebrows tick together, gaze flicking between him and N. “A… favor?” He asks, sounding more confused than angry.
Alder nods. “Yes. I need you to go find the doctors, okay, and bring them here?”
The boy's eyes spark with anger. “But Hilda, she’s-“ hestarts, hands clenching into fists, but Alder cuts him off before he can speak.
“Listen, I know you’re worried about Hilda. I am too. She needs a doctor. But this place is massive and I doubt they’ll know where to go. The best way to help her is to show the doctors where to go so they can help her.”
Again, Cheren’s gaze flicks, and Alder can see the hesitation and worry in his gaze. But from what little he knows about him, he’s a very smart and logical person—he might just need another small push.
“I’ll look after her, don’t worry,” Alder promises. He doesn’t say it but he thinks N, in his own way, is looking after her too. “She’s going to be okay once the doctors get here.”
Logic wins out. Cheren’s jaw sets, before he gives a sharp nod and turns, releasing his Stoutland, and together the two of them run back out of the throne room.
Okay. Problem one solved. Time for problem two—whatever in Distortion is going on here.
Alder turns back to N, who hasn’t moved much, still looking warily at him. Not actively hostile, but defensive.
He’s heard from Cedric and Juniper about the young prince—though, really, he’s less a prince and more a pawn. It seems that façade has fallen, too, in no small part due to Hilda herself. He’s not sure whether to be disappointed at himself for being unable to reach N or just happy that someone else could.
“N, what happened to you and Hilda?” He keeps his voice low, quiet, so as to not spook the prince. All the while, his eyes rove over the two, assessing.
As he noted before, N’s leg is broken, twisted awkwardly in a way that makes Alder wince in sympathy. Other than that, though, he seems uninjured, though there is the faint streak of tear tracks on his cheeks.
Hilda, on the other hand, looks to be worse off. It’s hard to tell with N’s arms covering most of her back but that seems to be where the wound, whatever it may be, is. He can see her jacket appears to be torn and there’s blood pooling on N’s legs and on the floor.
It makes Alder want to go back over to Ghetsis and shake him until he spills what happened. Ghetsis, who is still shouting and cursing, and seems to be mostly at N’s expense now, having noticed Alder moving towards him. Alder tunes him out.
N gulps again, shifts Hilda around so her head is resting on his collarbone. He can see her face, now, pale from blood loss and eyes shut, but her chest is still rising and falling.
“Gh- Ghetsis, he… He was so angry. His Hydregion…” the boy’s eyes pinch shut. “I wasn’t… I didn’t see it.”
His Hydregion. The same Hydregion that was now sitting unconscious not twenty feet away from him. Likely done by Reshiram, if he had to guess.
Great. On top of everything else, Alder gets to add attempted murder to Ghetsis’ list of crimes.
Well, hopefully it means he can be locked up for longer, if everything revolving around the entire literal castle now surrounding the Pokemon league wasn’t enough.
He moves to sit, knees creaking with the effort, but he hopes the movement will make him seem smaller. Less intimidating. Alder feels a little bad, treating N like a scared Pokemon, but given what he’s heard of his background it might work.
If it works, he can’t tell. N is still holding Hilda tight to his chest, and he wonders for a moment what exactly the relationship between the two is. Whatever it is, though, is enough for N to be protective of her in some way.
“It’s going to be okay,” Alder tells him. “Cheren is going to get some doctors, and they’re going to help Hilda.”
N’s jaw visibly clenches. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because you’re a smart kid, N, and you know as well as I do that Hilda needs professional help.”
“I- I’m not leaving her. It’s my fault she-“
He trails off, looks down. Guilt flashes plain and true across his face.
“I don’t think it’s your fault,” Alder says slowly, after a moment. “If what I’m hearing is right, Ghetsis is the one who hurt her. Not you.”
He couldn’t talk N down before. There had been what appeared to be an almost frenzied glint in his eyes as he had struck down Alder’s team one by one, with a scarily single-minded dedication to winning. But he thinks something had broken in those two hours since he'd last seen the prince.
Former prince now, certainly.
“How badly is she hurt?”
N looks down at Hilda again, shifts her in his arms. “Her- her back,” he says, voice cracking. “I’ve tried s-slowing the bleeding, but…”
Alder makes a note of that. Wishes he could move forward and help, but he doubts N would be receptive to that. So he forces himself to stay still, stay calm, be the guiding adult that the young man is clearly sorely lacking in his life.
“And you? Are you injured anywhere besides your leg?”
Silver eyes dart up to him, sharp and clear. “You- You don’t need to pretend like you care.”
Oh, Arceus. On top of everything else this kid has… Alder raises his eyebrows and tries not to take it personally.
“‘Course I care, N.”
N’s face sharpens, and he huffs. “I- I highly doubt that, Champion. I’m- the King of Team Plasma.”
There’s a pause there, a hesitation that N tries to skip over and Alder decides not to comment on.
“King or prince or whatever, you’re still a kid.” At least, he’s pretty sure N isn’t legally an adult. He hopes he’s just tall for his age. That’d make things easier, legally speaking, if he wasn’t. “Well, teen. And you’re a human being, a human being who's hurt. You need medical attention, just like Hilda.”
N shifts. Hilda lets out a soft little noise, not quite a cry of pain but definitely uncomfortable and both of them freeze.
Ghetsis is still shouting. Alder is tempted to tell his Volcorona to silence him with a string shot.
Biting his lower lip, N looks up at him. He’s pale, like Hilda, the daylight reflecting off sharp cheekbones, but it's the kind of pale that comes from not being out in the sun for long periods of time rather than the sunkissed sort of paleness Hilda has. “Why should I trust you?”
“Because I don’t think you’re a bad person, N. Just someone who is kind and selfless and got that taken advantage of by someone else.” Alder shifts so he’s sitting cross-legged but makes no move to get closer, as much as he wants to. “I don’t care what Ghetsis told you. No one wants to hurt you. The opposite, actually.”
From behind him, Reshiram lets out a cry of some kind. Alder gulps and looks behind him, to see the Dragon of Truth looking at them.
“You… you think…” N mutters, and it takes Alder a moment to realize N isn’t talking to him.
Reshiram cries out again, softer this time, but it still seems to make the air vibrate. Alder glances back over at N to see his grip around Hilda has slackened a little, the Prince looking down at her.
“…Fine,” the boy says after a moment, looking up at Alder again—but not quite meeting his gaze, silver eyes flickering over his shoulder, unfocused. “You… Just…” His eyes squeeze shut. “Don’t hurt her.”
Don’t hurt me, he hears behind it.
N says nothing else, so Alder carefully shifts forward, noting the way he tenses, but he doesn’t lash out at him like he did with Cheren. He likes to think it’s progress, but Alder’s pretty sure it has something to do with Reshiram more than any trust the boy has in him.
“Let me see the damage,” he says gently, moving to take off his poncho. N tenses, but lets him do so.
Up close, Alder can see the damage better. Three large, claw-like gashes cut into her back, tearing through her shirt and jacket. Her backside is covered in blood, and he can see a similar rip in N’s upper arm.
Alder bites back a curse, pressing his poncho to Hilda's back. She lets out another soft cry and squirms, and N tenses again, but doesn’t move.
When he speaks, his voice is quiet. Afraid. “Is- is she going to be okay?”
He nods. “I’ll make sure of it.”