Disclaimer: I absolutely do not own Pokèmon.

Authors' Note: Just my version of the events that led to the Shadow Triad joining Ghetsis. From what we learn from them in-game, he "saved" them. So I built on that, as well as the strange powers they display.

The names "Altair," "Lucy," and "Desmond" are homages to the Assassin's Creed series of games.

If you read, please review!

Absolute

Altair, Lucy, and Desmond were triplets, born in that order to a couple in Lacunosa Town, Unova. As was sometimes the case for siblings like these, they fell into traditional sibling roles despite the fact that they were triplets. As the "oldest," Altair was always the calmest and most mature of the three. Desmond, being the "baby" of the family, was more prone to crying fits and tantrums, and was always the most easily agitated. And Lucy, being the "middle" child, was the balance between the two, with a short fuse to match Desmond's easily rattled nature, but a level head to be able to keep up with Altair.

In this sense, they weren't abnormal and different at all. The fact that they were triplets might have set them apart from children in other households, but for all intents and purposes, they acted as any kids would. One could even go so far as to say that they were perfectly, obscenely normal.

Well, except for the small matter of the psychic phenomena they could cause.

There were often stories of twins or triplets that shared a psychic connection with each other. "Twin telepathy" was a popular subject in fiction, and the idea of it spreading between triplets, quadruplets, or any number of siblings born at the same time wasn't that much of a stretch — in fiction, anyway. The idea of it actually occurring in real life was absurd, to the point where no one would even consider the idea. Perhaps, then, it was no surprise that Altair, Lucy, and Desmond's parents didn't even consider the possibility that it could happen with their children, despite the fact that three showed an uncanny ability to "sync" with each other. In fact, it was their synchronization that always clued strangers into the fact that they were triplets, given that they didn't look exactly alike. Altair, after all, had neat black hair and brown eyes. Lucy's hair was brown, usually tied back, and her eyes were blue. Desmond's hair was the same color as Lucy's, but perpetually unkempt, and he had heterochromia; one eye was blue, the other brown.

All of that would have been fine — perhaps they could have even still passed as normal. There's a good chance that they would have flown completely under the radar, all of their shared thoughts and reactions hand-waved as coincidences and parlor tricks. But from the age of two, Altair was able to change location without lifting a single foot. One moment he would be in his playpen, and the next he'd be on the kitchen counter, rooting through the cookie jar for a treat. Around the same time, Lucy could make people do what she wanted. Throwing tantrums was something she was not above doing, but her parents began to suspect that the fact she seemed to be throwing tantrums less wasn't do to the fact that her behavior was improving, but was linked to the fact that one moment they told her she couldn't have ice cream for supper, and the next moment she had it, while they had no recollection of how she'd gotten it. And Desmond — twitchy, unpredictable Desmond — began manifesting telekinetic abilities at around the same time, causing lights to flicker and light bulbs to shatter if his tantrums grew bad enough, plates rattling in the cabinets and objects he desired (be they toys or treats) flying into his hands. Of course, all three siblings eventually adopted each other's powers, learning from each other, but that only served to make their parents' stresses that much more potent.

Truthfully, their parents couldn't understand it. Neither of them had any power to speak of — at least, not that they knew of. Both were perfectly, obscenely normal, and though they could each trace their family tree back to other regions — one had distant family in Ecruteak City, possibly related to the Gym Leader there, while the other could trace back no further than the general area of Saffron City in Kanto — neither of them could understand why their children had turned out the way they had. It wouldn't have mattered so much, except for the fact that — when they were very young, too young to understand why this behavior was socially unacceptable — they had a tendency to use their abilities in public. They would suddenly teleport so that they were standing right behind someone, or use their telekinesis to grab things out of their reach. It attracted attention, and while there were some who thought the children should go into the circus business, there were others who had much more unsavory things to say. Rumors were started, names were called. Behind cupped hands and in whispered voices, people began to speculate that the children weren't even human. They were "demon" children, supernatural "creatures," most likely evil and could probably kill a person with one look. It was almost funny, because this was a world where elemental monsters could be capsulated and kept in a pocket, and yet, paranormal abilities caused those who used them to become social pariahs.

Although, perhaps that was to be expected. People always feared and shunned that which they could not understand, and while Pokèmon were natural and normal, the three "demon" children were not.

But despite the negative attention they received, Altair, Lucy, and Desmond still lived the best lives they could under the circumstances, learning when and where to use their powers, and were happy to just spend time with each other and with their parents, who loved them despite their abnormalities, and who they loved in return.

Well, for the first thirteen years of their lives, anyway.

As they grew older, it became evident that out of the three of them, Desmond was the weakest link. True, all three of them were synced, but they still each had their own personality, and Desmond was twitchy, unstable, and prone to paranoia. It got to the point where he was forbidden from consuming caffeine, something that only made him more hyper and prone to panic fits, and where his parents considered putting him on daily sedatives. It was only the fact that Altair and Lucy were able to calm him down that prevented their parents from doing that, but the fact remained that Desmond was seen by others as the one weak link in the tight-knit trio.

Maybe that was the reason why things happened the way they did.

That night, Desmond was worse than normal. Really, he'd been worse for a couple of weeks, ever since they took a family vacation to the Royal Unova. From the time they set foot on the boot, Desmond was unnerved and on edge, and at first, Altair, Lucy, and their parents chalked up to the fact that being on a ship for the first time in his life frightened him. But he didn't get used to it for the duration of the trip, nor did he return to normal once they got home. If anything, he got worse, insisting that he could feel someone watching them.

"I just know it, someone's close!" he insisted, grabbing Lucy's hand and balling his fingers in Altair's shirt. "Someone's been watching us, and — and I can feel it, something bad is going to happen!"

"You've been saying that for weeks now," Lucy said irritably, tugging her hand out of Desmond's grip. Out of the three of them, he was always sent to bed the earliest, due to the fact that it took him the longest to fall asleep. They'd had separate bedrooms since they were seven, but each night, both Altair and Lucy tucked Desmond into bed. It was a bit ridiculous given his age, but the only way he'd lay down to sleep is if he saw them just before he did. "Nothing has happened yet. Nothing will happen. You're just paranoid."

"I'm not!" Desmond insisted. "I'm not just paranoid! I mean — I am paranoid, maybe a little, but only a little! I know it! I'm not making this up! I've felt it ever since we got on that ship! Someone was there, someone saw us, and they knew — they knew what we were, they knew what we could do, and they — they — argh!" He flopped back onto his bed, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. "Someone's watching us right now, they're going to do something, something bad is going to happen!"

"We'll be fine," Altair said, his calm voice a direct opposite to the impatience in Lucy's tone. "We're always fine. You should get some sleep, try to relax."

"Yeah, Dezzy." Lucy leaned forward, and patted Desmond's leg. "You'll see. You'll wake up in the morning, and everything will be fine. Mom will make waffles, Dad will be reading the paper, and they'll make sure to keep their coffee way out of your reach. Like normal."

"Yeah. No coffee. Normal." Desmond sat up, watching his siblings with a worried frown. "You really don't feel anything? You don't feel them pressing in, getting closer? You don't feel like something bad — something really bad — you don't sense it?"

"For the last time, no." Lucy sighed in exasperation, and leaned forward to plant a kiss on Desmond's forehead. "Go to sleep, Dezzy. We'll see you in the morning."

"O-Okay." Desmond took a shaky breath, settling back under his covers. His eyes flicked continuously between Lucy and Altair, almost imploring them to suddenly state that they believed him, that they sensed the same impending doom that he did. "Good night, Lucy. Good night, Altair."

"Good night, Desmond," his siblings chorused. Lucy was the first out of the room, but Altair paused in the doorway, flicking off Desmond's light and taking one glance back. "Sweet dreams."

If only it were that simple.

Truth be told, though they wouldn't tell Desmond this for fear of increasing his already crippling paranoia, they did sense something. It didn't affect them as badly as it affected him, but Lucy's irritability was only increased due to the fact that she was getting less sleep each night, and Altair had suffered an increased difficulty breathing, due to the presence he felt pressing in on his lungs. But while both of them could feel something, they weren't sure what it was, and for that reason, neither of them thought it was worth investigating. All it would serve to do was worsen Desmond's condition, and neither of them wanted to put their brother through that.

Perhaps they should have.

It was late into the night, early into the morning, and Altair and Lucy had already gone to bed, though none of the siblings truly slept. Altair fell in and out of sleep, waking up every time his mind realized he'd stopped breathing, and Lucy tossed and turned fitfully, her dreams only half-there. Desmond, meanwhile, was still wide awake, trembling in a little ball beneath his blankets, a muscle in his left eyelid twitching every now and then due to his nerves. He tried to force himself to go to sleep, to believe in what Lucy had said about the normal morning he'd wake up to, but he couldn't. The feeling that something was horribly wrong kept him from it.

That feeling culminated in his bedroom door slowly opening at around three in the morning.

Without needing to ask or turn around, Desmond knew that the person entering his room was neither Lucy nor Altair. He knew their presences. Lucy's was light, like the autumn wind, and Altair's was perpetually calm, like a fresh blanket of snow in the winter. This person didn't have the presence of either of those, but instead was . . . confusing. It felt almost familiar, yet different in a dangerous way, and it caused him to jerk up and spin quickly to face them, his eyes wide. There was no light on in the hallway, and he slept with blackout curtains, to try and better entice himself to sleep. The pitch darkness did nothing to help him see who the person was, therefore, and he pressed his back tightly against the wall, two seconds away from screaming.

"Who — Who are you?" he rasped out, his fingers dancing along his bed covers in agitation. "What do you what? What are you doing here? Why have you been watching us? Have you been watching us? Who are you? Argh!" He couldn't help the scream that came from his mouth, but the person paid no mind to that or his questions. Instead, they paused as they stood by his bedside, merely standing over him in utter silence for a few moments. Desmond continued to stare up at the person, trying in vain to make out any details on their face. It wasn't until the person raised their arm that Desmond gave up on that attempt, his eyes instead fixating on the movement. "What are you doing? What's that you're holding? What are you—NO!" It was too dark to make out any clear details, but the person raised their arm in a way Desmond had seen mimicked on TV and in movies, and maybe it was just his paranoia, but he could envision a weapon there. He squinted his eyes shut and held out his hands, and a second later he felt something fall into them. When he opened his eyes a fraction, he could now see that his trembling fingers held the handle of a butcher knife.

"AARGH!" If he was any other person, he might have laughed. How cliché was it, to see the killer enter the room with a butcher knife? But for a thirteen-year-old boy who'd already been terrified of this very thing happening, he felt no such humor. The person, who'd moved sluggishly before, suddenly lunged at him, one hand landing on his left shoulder, the other groping for the knife. Desmond screamed again, squirming to try and get away, not even thinking to employ his other gift. If he'd been calmer, maybe he would have thought about teleporting out of there, getting himself to safety. Instead, all he could think to do was flail, and that was precisely how the blade of the knife ended up embedded in the person's neck, a little down below their ear, along their jaw line. The person gurgled, a sort of choked, disgustingly wet sound, and collapsed onto Desmond's bed, jerking spastically as they tried — and failed — to remove the knife from their body.

Desmond merely sat on the bed, shaking violently in suppressed horror, unable to move. It wasn't until he heard a thud from the hallway that he finally propelled himself into action, springing off his bed and bolting for the door. The light was still off in the hallway, but he could make out two shapes: one tall and lying prone on the floor, the sticky stench of blood slowly permeating the air, and a smaller form like fresh autumn air standing just behind it.

Lucy.

"Aah! Lucy! What happened? What's going on? Who were those people? I knew it! I knew something bad would happen! I can't take this! I don't know what I did! I don't know what you did! I—"

"Desmond, shut up!" Lucy's voice was shaking, and Desmond could sense that her fear equaled his own. "Altair's hurt. We need to take care of him first."

"Altair? What? No!" Desmond skirted around he prone body on the floor, a spasm ripping through him when his bare foot felt quickly cooling blood, and followed Lucy as she made her way to a curled figure he hadn't previously noticed. Altair wasn't lying down like the other body was, but he was sitting, his left hand grasping his right arm. Even in the darkness, Desmond could tell that Altair was bleeding. He could always tell things like that with his siblings. "What happened? What—"

"I couldn't sleep," Altair said quietly, speaking through his teeth. "I — I couldn't breathe, and I sensed something was wrong in your room. When I went to investigate, that person . . . it was clumsy of me. I wasn't concentrating on my surroundings. They got the jump on me and stabbed me with something. I moved to defend myself, but at that point . . ."

"I got the jump on them." There was almost something akin to pride in Lucy's voice, and perhaps it would have been that, if her own tremors weren't still causing her voice to quake. "I jumped on their back and slit their throat with a letter opener."

"Oh god!" Desmond pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes again, not wanting to hear the rest. "That's — That's murder! How could you — how are we — that's—!"

"He was going to kill Altair!" Lucy argued, her voice rising. "He'd already stabbed him, and who knows? He might've killed the rest of us, too! I didn't — it's not like I wanted to kill him, I just — I didn't think—!"

"It's okay." Altair's voice was as calm as ever, and he forced himself to his feet. Lucy moved forward to steady him, and Desmond reached one hand out, yet then just as quickly pulled it back. "We — let's see who these people were, first. Then we can wake Mom and Dad, and figure out what to do."

"I'll — I'll get the — the — light!" Desmond couldn't begin to remember where the switch for the hall light was in that moment, but with his command and a jerky wave of his hand, his telekinetic ability managed to flip it away. He blinked rapidly, dazed by the sudden flood of light that filled the hall, but when his eyes finally adjusted, he wished they hadn't. Amidst his panicked cry, Lucy let out a little gasp of denial, and Altair's eyes were wide.

". . . D-Dad?"

"Oh god, oh god . . . no!" Desmond, suddenly feeling like he was going to be sick, raced back to his bedroom door. The light from the hall was enough to illuminate his room now, and without going closer, he could make out the form of his mother crumpled on his bed, now still. "Oh god, oh god, oh god oh god oh . . ." He sank to the floor, putting his head between his knees, unsure if he was going to throw up or pass out as he rocked back and forth. "Oh god, oh god . . ."

"Dezzy, shut up, calm down, what are you even . . ." Lucy had made her way to him, and though he couldn't see her, he could envision her looking into his room. "Oh, no . . . Dezzy . . . Dezzy, you . . ."

"I couldn't see," Desmond whimpered, still rocking back and forth. "It was dark and she had a knife and I couldn't see, I just got the knife from her and it happened so fast, she was there and I just tried to get away, I just flung my arm and it happened, and then this happened, and oh god, oh god, we — we killed them, we killed our—"

"We need to get out of here." Out of all of them, Altair was the most practiced at being silent, and so Desmond jumped with another little screen as he heard his brother right behind him. Turning, he saw that Altair had, at some point, left to retrieve bandages (possibly by teleportation, if Desmond stopped to think about it, but forming any coherent thought was nigh impossible at the moment), and he held them out to Lucy. He looked pale, possibly from the blood loss, but lucid and mostly steady on his feet. "Lucy, please tie these around my arm. If we're going to leave, I can't be bleeding all over the place." With trembling hands, Lucy took the bandages and began to do as instructed, keeping up the conversation as she did so.

"Leave? Where will we go?"

"Anywhere but here. We can't stay. If we do, they'll think we did it."

"We did—" Desmond began, his voice a miserable whine, but Altair cut him off, his tone far more sharp than usual.

"It was an accident — self-defense. I don't know why they did this, but we — we didn't have any choice. But do you think any of them," he gestured with his good hand as if indicating the rest of the town, "will think that? Do you think they'll believe us? They hate us. They'll think we planned this. We can't stay here."

"If we leave, that's all but admitting our guilt," Lucy said quietly. Altair gave her a flat look.

"Maybe, but at least we won't face death for it." He tried his arm once Lucy had finished bandaging it, wincing as he tried to use it. "Close enough. Let's go. Pack your backpacks, grab what you can — we have to leave quickly."

"But where—" Lucy began again, but Altair cut her off just as he'd done to Desmond.

"Castelia City. We'll make for Castelia City. It's big enough so that—"

"—no one will be able to find us there." Desmond and Lucy finished his sentence at the same time, and Lucy nodded. "All right. Dezzy, you heard him, move it. Get your stuff together, we need to go."

Desmond moved into his room carefully, skirting around the edges, trying to avoid looking at his mother's body. He couldn't stay in there long. He haphazardly shoved things into his backpack, not even looking at the clothes he was stuffing inside. Finally, despite the fact that it was late May, he grabbed his dark green winter parka out of his closet, pulling it on and zipping it up all the way. It was big enough so that it would hide his trembling, and the collar covered his mouth and nose, muffling his voice so his quiet, shaky cries couldn't be heard. When he pulled his hood up, all that could be seen were his eyes.

He darted back out into the hallway, reaching it at the same time as his siblings. Both of them had similar ideas to grab their winter gear; Altair had his dark gray beanie pulled down over his head, and Lucy was wearing her blue chullo hat, her hair — previously down to her waist, usually pulled into a high ponytail — now chopped haphazardly to her chin.

"I thought it might be less recognizable this way," she said, sensing her brothers' inquiries. "And easier to take care of since we'll have to keep moving."

Altair nodded. "Smart plan. Come here, both of you." His backpack was thrown over his good shoulder, and he forced his bad arm out to them. Lucy took hold of his hand, and held her own out to Desmond, who somehow managed to grasp it in a tremulous grip. They looked up at each other, locking eyes as they all thought of their destination. A moment later, they were gone.

It took many trips to get to Castelia City, for their powers weren't perfectly refined, and the only one of them that had truly mastered teleportation was Altair. But eventually they made it, blending into the streets, homeless with no idea where to go once they got there. They had no money. They had no way to make money. They considered Training, but they had no way to acquire Pokèmon and were afraid that someone would recognize them if they did. They kept their ears and eyes open for news of their parents' murder, but Castelia — the city that never slept or even power-napped — had no such care for a trivial matter like the murder of two adults in a far away town, and so they were never caught.

But life on the streets wasn't as glamorous as some stories made it out to be. When it rained, they had no shelter. Their only method of obtaining food was to steal, and though their powers made quick work of that, Altair didn't like to do it. He realized that it was necessary, a fact Lucy often pointed out when his conscience started to get the better of him, and he would do anything to protect his siblings. But the fact remained that they'd already committed one heinous crime, and he didn't want to add to the list. He would, especially when he could see that his brother and sister were going hungry otherwise, but that didn't mean that he liked to.

Most of the time, they slept in an alleyway — a different alley each night, to avoid being easy to track. Sometimes they made their ways to the rooftops, and always they stayed away from the Gym, wary of being caught by the Gym Leader. In this manner, they came to know every inch of Castelia City, and came to recognize many of the people there by sight and even name. They almost began to think of it as their city, and in some way they became almost fond of it. They were never as fond of it as they had been of their home, but that home was gone, and there was no point in pretending otherwise. For all intents and purposes, the streets of Castelia were their home now.

For the late spring and summer months, it wasn't that bad. It was hot, and the bug Pokèmon enjoyed swarming at night, but it was tolerable. Living on scraps, sleeping in the streets — those were the real problems, not the muggy summer of Castelia or the bug Pokèmon that were no doubt attracted by the bug-type Gym. Well, the real problems alongside the fact that Desmond's nerves had taken a decided turn for the worse the night their parents had died, his paranoia ramping up to barely manageable levels. Each night he woke up screaming, to the point where he was constantly living in his parka, trying to muffle the sound of his frantic screams with his collar. For Altair and Lucy, who could feel his pain and panic but couldn't think of anything to do about it, it was almost unbearable.

So as for the poor conditions of living in the streets, the real trouble weather-wise didn't come until October, when the wind took on a more arctic bite, especially when it blew over from the ocean. Rain, which had been warm during the summer, started carrying the promise of snow, dropping the temperature even when it had already passed, and the skies became perpetually overcast and dismal. Without any shelter, the trio was left to shiver during and after each rainfall, their clothes soaking to the skin to the point where they felt numb. To make matters worse, Desmond had always been prone to illness, to the point where it didn't surprise Altair at all when he came down with pneumonia — a severe enough case that he was barely lucid half the time, the only upside being that he wasn't lucid enough to give into any screaming fits during his sleep. But with his high fever, inability to keep anything down, and breathing troubles, screaming fits were the least of Altair's worries.

Especially when he came down with bronchitis himself.

"We can't keep living like this," Lucy said, for what felt like the billionth time since Altair had woken up in the middle of the night, coughing up green mucus, hardly able to breathe. "You're sick as a dog, Desmond's dying—"

"He's not going to die," Altair said, quietly but firmly. They were in an alley across from the Gym, dangerously close, but closest to the grocery store that was easiest to steal from. Desmond was curled into a little ball by Altair's side, his forehead and shut eyes being all that was visible from inside his parka hood, and Altair pressed the back of his hand against his brother's sweaty forehead. "We'll take care of him."

"We can't even get proper medicine for him," Lucy countered. She looked near tears, and Altair could understand why. She was the only one of them that was healthy enough to do much of anything, but even she was weak with hunger and fatigue. It was a miracle she wasn't sick, too. "Or you. We can barely get enough food, it's cold enough as it is and we won't last if it snows—"

"Then what do you propose we do?" Altair demanded, trying to keep the irritation from his voice. He curled a fist, coughing into it before speaking again, trying to ignore how his chest ached. "We have nowhere to go, Lucy. The only option is if we turned ourselves in, and if you think we're at risk of dying now. . ."

"I . . . I don't know." Lucy's righteous anger seemed to deflate, and she sat down, pulling her knees to her chest. "I don't know where to go, or what to do. But you know what?" She continued without Altair having to prompt her. "I caught the date on a newspaper in the grocery store when I scoped it out earlier. It's November fifth. Our birthday." She laughed sourly. "Happy birthday to us."

"Mm." Altair turned his head against his shoulder to cough, and heard Desmond do the same, the smaller boy groaning as he tried curling in even tighter on himself. Altair didn't want to say as much to Lucy, but she was right; with the way things were looking, they wouldn't make it to their next birthday. They were fourteen now, if the date on the newspaper was true, but fifteen was virtually unattainable. As it stood, it looked like Desmond would be the first of them to drop off.

Altair couldn't stand that thought.

As skilled as they were for being as noticed as a bland wall painting now, once upon a time, they had made something of a name for themselves. Back in Lacunosa Town, everyone knew who they were, and the rumors of what they did spread easily. Even after they disappeared from that town forever, talk of them didn't cease, especially when popular theory came that they were the ones who murdered their parents before leaving. That story was exaggerated, naturally, but it still kept their names alive. It kept interest in them thriving.

Perhaps it was that which drove someone to find them. Perhaps it was a miracle that caused him to find them when they were at their most desperate. Perhaps it was some latent ability of theirs, reaching out for help even when they consciously thought they wouldn't find it, begging someone — anyone — to save them.

Or perhaps it was something more sinister, something they knew nothing about, but something they didn't care to know anything about. Because at the moment that the man came down the alleyway, his fine leather shoes making soft sounds against the dirty concrete, his long robe just barely brushing the ground, their lives were irrevocably changed.

Immediately, Lucy got up and moved to Altair's right side, placing him in-between herself and Desmond. Desmond tried weakly to sit up, not as asleep as Altair had originally thought, but he was so out of it that he couldn't make out any details of the stranger. Altair sat up straighter, raising his chin as he appraised the man, but more afraid than defiant. The man wasn't terribly tall, and his short sea green hair could almost be seen as ridiculous, but the cloak was almost like armor and he had one red, mechanical eye in place of where a normal eye should be. There was something about that eye that struck intimidation into Altair's heart, especially since he knew he was in no real condition to protect either of his siblings, try as he might.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice raspy and raw due to coughing. "What do you want?"

"It's rude to inquire another's name before giving your own," the man said, a smirk curling around his words. Altair didn't reply. "My name is Ghetsis. I have come here to save you."

"Save . . . us?" Altair narrowed his eyes, trying to swallow to wet his throat. "What makes you think we need saving?"

"Look at you," Ghetsis said, moving one hand from inside his cloak to gesture at them. "Your sister is so thin a strong gust could snap her spine in two. You're two coughs away from losing your lung. Your brother is practically on his death bed. With the way you look now, you won't last the winter."

Altair and Lucy didn't need to exchange looks to know that they were thinking the exact same thing. Either he was eavesdropping on their conversation before, or they really did look as bad as they felt.

"How do you want to save us? Are you planning on taking us in out of the goodness of your heart?" Normally, Altair wasn't so caustic — that was Lucy's department — but he considered this to be a special case. To his surprise, Ghetsis' smirk broadened.

"Yes, though not exactly."

"Not exactly? What do you—"

"I know who you are. I know that you are Altair, Lucy, and Desmond from Lacunosa Town. I know that the three of you are very gifted. And I know that you came here after the unfortunate deaths of your parents." Desmond jerked violently at Altair's left, and Lucy grasped Altair's right hand in a death lock. Altair just stared.

"How do you—"

"I know the truth of what happened," Ghetsis continued, as if he hadn't noticed their reactions. "I know that it wasn't your fault. I know that someone used a Pokèmon to control them and force them to attack you. I know that you did what you did out of self-defense. And I would like to help you now, so long as you promise to also help me."

"Help you do what?"

"I am the leader of a secret organization." Ghetsis walked closer, his voice quieter now, no doubt to avoid attracting the attention of the people on the street. "I only wish to enlist your aid in helping my dreams come to fruition. You are the only ones that have the abilities to help me where I need it most. In return, I will not only ensure that you receive medical care now, but I will make sure that you three never have to suffer or want for anything ever again."

It almost felt like a trap. He was admitting up front that he wished to use them for their powers, but he was also offering them a way out. They were hungry. They were cold. They hadn't properly showered in months. Desmond coughed weakly by Altair's side, and by this point, Altair was no longer sure if Desmond's trembling was because of the paranoia and nightmares that constantly plagued him, or because of the fever.

"Altair—" Lucy began, but Altair didn't need to hear what she had to say. Looking up, he locked eyes with Ghestis, and said with as much sincerity as he could muster:

"Please."

Ghetsis took them to a half-finished castle below ground, a structure that was constantly being worked on by a multitude of Pokèmon commanded by people dressed like the knight templars of old. They, Ghetsis told them, were members of Team Plasma, the organization that he currently led, but that they didn't have to worry about at the moment. Their only concern for the moment was healing, and then training, learning to harness their abilities to the fullest extent so that they could later use them to aid him.

It wasn't paradise. It didn't feel like the warm, cozy home they'd grown up in before it was ripped away from them at the end of May. But compared to the cold ground they were sleeping on before, the Spartan room with the thin bunk beds was more than enough to satisfy them. It took a month and a half for Altair to overcome his bronchitis and three months for Desmond to fully recover, but by the time they did, Lucy had become fully accustomed to the life they now led. She'd even already begun honing her own abilities, taking each of Ghetsis' instructions to heart, following ever order to the letter.

"He saved our lives," she told her brothers, pulling up the hood of the white coat Ghestis had given her. Each of her brothers had an identical one, though Desmond still pulled the collar of his up far enough to obscure his mouth and muffle his speech. "The least we can do now is help him."

Altair and Desmond voiced no complaints, especially as Ghetsis offered ways for Desmond to finally overcome the twitchy paranoia that had plagued him in recent times. Hypnosis therapy wasn't the best treatment Lucy would have given to her brother, but it was better than the alternative of medication, and daily meditation rituals with a Hypno seemed to be doing wonders for him. At the very least, he became calmer, less prone to random outbursts of screams and twitching. Of course, he still was a bit twitchy, and that jittery energy was something that would never leave him completely; but he was no longer straddling the fence between breakdowns, and that was something they could all be thankful for.

They'd always been synced, perfectly able to feel each other's thoughts, emotions, and predict each other's movements. But through daily training, speaking in tandem became almost second nature, and when they weren't alone — when they were on a job, or else moving through the halls of the castle, their hoods pulled up so their faces were obscured and they looked virtually identical — they almost became as one, forsaking their individuality for the sake of the job. When they were alone, it was different; they became themselves again, falling back into the comforting sibling roles that had gotten them through so much. But when they weren't, they weren't Altair, Lucy, and Desmond, but the Shadow Triad, a single entity that struck fear even into the hearts of Team Plasma's highest ranking members. What they did as the Shadow Triad varied, for the tasks Ghetsis (and later N) always differed, and they carried out each one flawlessly, saving any misgivings or guilty consciences for when they were alone, and able to be themselves again. But through it all, two things remained absolute:

One, their loyalty to Ghetsis, the man that had saved them from the streets and certain death;

And

Two, their loyalty to each other, more absolute and sacred than anything else, unbreakable even when everything else fell apart.