The alarm sounded loud and clear, thrumming through my beating head like a hammer. I groaned in irritation as I pulled a pillow over my head in attempt to block out the noise. Needless to say, it didn't work but throwing the pillow at the security camera sure did. The hunk of metal and wires crashed to the ground with a large bang as the metal box hit the metal floor. For a few moments, I just stared at it absentmindedly before I simply shrugged it off and snuggling back into my other pillow. "Oops." I muttered to myself as Silver chuckled in amusement.

"Will you get in trouble for that?"

"I dunno... Probably." I replied, cracking open one eye to look at my big brother. "But that's nothing new."

I inwardly groaned when my sense of aura flickered to life, alerting me someone was coming, Kathrine of course with Shadow and a grunt. Pulling the blanket over my head, I retreated into the depths of the fabric, grumbling bitterly to myself.

"What are you doing?" Silver inquired, sounding unsure about my method of hiding from my biological mother.

I stuck a hand out from the covers, slowly counting down from five to zero before pointing to the door as the locked clicked. The trio entered the room as I retreated further into the warmth beneath my blanket. For a moment, Kathrine was silent before she sighed.

"Emma get out from under there."

"No." I replied, biting down on my lower lip as I smirked to myself.

Again, Kathrine sighed. "Now Emma." Hehe, she's getting impatient~!

I took a deep, over exaggerated breath in before replying. "No."

Kathrine sighed deeply for the third time, knowing that because of our little agreement, she couldn't threaten to harm Silver while I was in my 'room'. "Get out from under the covers or I will put Silver back where he belongs and you will spend the day on your own."

Well then...

Huffing irritably, I sat up, leaving the covers over my head for a moment before batting them away to death glare Team Rifts leader. "Happy?" Of course I knew it would end like this, Kathrine liked using the loopholes in our 'deals' against me in the worst ways, something I was growing more and more accustom to.

"Very much so." She replied flatly, narrowing her eyes at me. "Your last test proved successful with the data gathered so there will be no reason to repeat it."

I mentally sighed with relief. Over this past week, if I'd failed to meet the requirements of any tests over this past week, I'd have to redo it and I would rather have to kill myself then spend another 24 hours trapped in a pitchbalck room with my hallucinations.

"After the... Mental strain a test such as yesterday's would have no doubt caused, you will have today off--"

"Then what was the point of the fucking alarm?" I groaned, flopping back into bed. "I want to sleep."

"So I could talk to you." Kathrine replied. "You are not on vacation."

"You've already made that perfectly clear," I rolled my eyes. "and I've made it clear I would rather take a vacation to the fucking Distortion World with Giratina and his fucking barbecued Torchic then be here."

Kathrine pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Since you haven't eaten in a day and a half, you will be expected to eat everything given to you today or there will be consequences and someone will be along shortly to fix your security camera again." She narrowed her eyes at that statement but I just shrugged... Needless to say, it wasn't my first time breaking it out of my bad mood mornings.

"Whatever." I muttered, sitting back up to glare at her. "Now can you go so I can sleep?"

"No, if you go back to sleep you'll throw yourself for tomorrow's schedule." Kathrine replied sternly, standing by the door as Shadow silently opened it. "You may go to bed early if you wish but not until after you've eaten your dinner." With that she, Shadow and the grunt left the room.

"Fuck you!" I shouted, throwing my other pillow at the cell door as it closed before huffing and falling onto the mattress, preparing to sleep without a pillow.

Silver cleared his throat slightly. "Should I be worried?"

Rolling my eyes I peered up at my brother with an annoyed expression. "Silver, if you know next to anything about me, you will understand that that was completely normal behaviour for me when I am in this shitty of a mood."

"Now would be a bad time to point out your language wouldn't it?" He asked with an amused smirk.

"Terribly." I huffed, flopping my face back down for a moment before rolling over and sitting up. "Welp, since I'm clearly not going to get any sleep any time soon, I'm going for a shower. I stink."

"Like you can talk, at least you have a shower."

Smiling to myself, I lighting patted his head. "Don't worry Ariel, you can go next."

He batted me away with a frown. "Yeah yeah, go already."

"Fist time we've seen each other in a week and we're already sick of each other within five minutes." I couldn't help myself but to smile, happy to be reunited with my brother after the exhausting week I'd just been through. "Oh, prepare yourself for a long rant about how much this place is a pain in my ass." I smirked before ducking into the bathroom.

Silver simply rolled his eyes as I shut the door. "I knew the edible food came with a catch."

~*🌸*~

Half an hour later, Silver exited the bathroom, his towel draped around his shoulders to prevent his hair from dampening his clothes, much like what I do... Exactly what I do actually. His long, girly red was once more vibrant and much more fitting of the nickname Ariel (even though I would have still called him that anyway).

"So, I believe I was promised a rant?" My brother inquired as he plopped down on the end on my bed.

I finished my mouthful of bacon and egg sandwich, today's breakfast before replying. "Food first then rant Snowflake." Normally I would take any chance I could to ignore my food but I hadn't eaten anything in almost two days and despite my detest for this place and the food here, I was starving.

Silver took his own and we both ate in silence, I was going over what I would and wouldn't say but as far as I could think, there wasn't really anything to leave out.... Except my insistent teases towards Kathrine that she may or may not be a slut... Now that was funny-- Who said the is a PG13 book again? Certainly not me.

When we finished our breakfast, it didn't take long for me to recap my week to my big brother since there wasn't actually much to tell. Punched this, jumped over that. Pretty boring now that I think about it... Just completely physically and mentally exhausting.

"And now I'm here..." I shrugged, falling back onto my still pillowless bed. "I hate it. At least when she walked out on me, I could make up my own excuses as to why..." I sighed leaning against the wall. "Not she's pretty much ruined that and she's nothing more then a selfish, self-centred snake and I hate her..."

"I'd imagine. You're normally so rebellious." My brother rolled his eyes. "But you're always this over dramatic-- ow!"

I hit him over the back of his head, glaring as I did. "I'm not over dramatic! I have to deal with both Kathrine and Cyrus every day and it's not like either of them is make it easy to tolerate them." Sighing slightly,  as I stared at the ceiling aimlessly. "In all honesty, I've always hated Kathrine for abandoning me with Cyrus but there was always a part of me that wanted to find her... That there was a good reason behind it."

My eyes flicked is Silver's direction to read his expression as he spoke. "Guess this was quite a shock then." He rose an eye brow.

"Not entirely, I knew it had to be all good or all bad, there's never an in-between in my life it seems, I just wish it had gone the other way... Though it has been ten years since Kathrine was last in my life so it's not exactly as much of a surprise as it should have been." I sighed again sitting up straight to meet eye level with my brother.

Silver nodded in understanding. "Yeah, guess we're the same there."

I sighed deeply as I stared at the tight black bracelet on my wrist. The thing was heavy and limited the available movement of the joint, getting in the way more often then I care to say even without the inclusion of how it cut off my ability to use my powers, not to mention how tired I was from having part of my being cut off. "Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if I'd stayed dead and let someone else take my job...."

Pity filled my brothers eyes as he scooted in closer to me side, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "Hey, don't say that. Things are tough but I know your strong enough to pull though Emma."

For a few moments I sat in silence, contemplating what to say. "You're wrong, every day has been getting worse and worse... Harder to deal with. I'm not sure how much longer I can stand to be treated this way, I hate it!" I balled my hands into fists, scrunching up jeans as I did. "Especially being around Cyrus every day and not being able to punch him."

"You and me both, what I would give to sock Giovanni in the face."

I looked back up at Silver curiously. "I know I'm changing the subject here, and if you don't mind me asking, but what exactly happened between you and Giovanni? Whenever you'd come to visit he just seemed intimidating, not abusive or anything like that..."

"No, nothing like that, just... We had different ideals. I didn't want to be the heir of Team Rocket like Giovanni wanted me to. I believe strength should come from a trainer and their Pokémon not an army of followers. I made myself strong because I wanted to prove I could do it on my own." Silver shrugged. "When I was twelve, I ran away from home, stole a Totodile and started a journey by myself. I stayed out of Team Rockets business and Giovanni stayed out of mine."

"You stole a Totodile?"

Silver rubbed the back of his head with an awkward expression. "I didn't have a parent to sigh the papers for me to get a starter so I stole one."

I shook my head. "Do you know why I started with two Eevee rather then a regular Johto starter?.

"No..."

"Because my starter was stolen the morning I went to pick it up!" I couldn't help myself from bursting out laughing. "That has to be one of the most uncanny coincidences I have ever heard!"

My brother also chuckled. "Whoops... Sorry."

"It's cool, I couldn't ask for more loyal Pokémon the Hope and Trust--" I cut myself off, hanging my head with a harsh feeling of despondency welling in my chest. Being away from my Pokémon, especially Hope who had hardly left my side for the five years I'd owned her, was heart wrenching for me.

"You miss them don't you?" Silver questioned, leaving little to the imagination as to who 'they' were.

I nodded, unable to speak through the lump in my throat.

"Don't worry, Kathrine said if you what she said they'd be fine, right?"

Again I nodded. "They just make me feel safe, I don't like being away from them. I wish I at least knew they were okay."

"Sorry, can't be any help there... I only ever see Red."

"It's fine..." I replied, shaking my head briskly as I decided to change the subject. "Wanna play poker?"

Understanding what I was doing, Silver went along. "With what?"

"The bag of skittles and cards I have in the top draw." I shrugged, opening the draw to pull out both items as proof.

My brother seemed surprised I had the items. "How did you get them?

Rolling my eyes, a smirk danced across my features. "Generally, I get can have pretty much whatever I ask for within reason, I think Kathrine just wants to keep me in a good mood so I'm not so much of a pain."

"Right.... What's within reason?" Silver asked as we each took our place on the bed for a game, not like there was anything else to do.

"I'm still waiting on a map to this place, a key to the stupid cuff and a hot tub." I replied, counting off a few items on my fingers.

Silver again raised his eyebrow. "A hot tub?"

I chuckled to myself, it had been meant kind of as a joke but that doesn't mean I don't want one. "My muscles are sore after working all day."

"Why am I not surprised... Wait, when did you learn to play poker?"

~*~*~*🌸*~*~*~
Word count: 2197

Finally done! I'm so very sorry it took me so long to update a chapter, I've been more busy then I care to go on about and as this chapter builds on both Emma and Silver, I wanted to get it write before publishing it.

Thank you all for being to patient. Please remember to leave a vote and drop a comment before leaving, helpful beyond what I can put into words.