When Serena woke up, she was surprised to find she wasn't cozily tucked up in her own bed beside her boyfriend, but alone in a strange room. Whoever had taken her here had been kind enough to give her a surprisingly nice room, with a bed hidden beneath soft sheets and a few minimal but nonetheless adequate furnishings, almost everything in the room being white.

Serena stood up, her bare feet disliking the cold tile floor. "Hello?" She called out nervously. "Is anyone there?"

She tried the door when nobody replied. To her surprise, she got straight out. She looked around, wondering which way she should go to get out.

"Ah, I see you're awake," a voice said, causing Serena to turn. She saw a tall, lean man with overly large glasses and blonde hair. "W-who are you?" Serena asked nervously. The stranger chuckled.

"You'll know in time, my dear. It's Serena, right? Serena Yvonne?"

"Why am I here?" Serena asked, a little braver now. "You see, Miss Yvonne, we've brought you here as a hostage," the man grinned. "That boyfriend of yours is very strong, but all we need from him is that Greninja of his and we get all his power and more! But he'd do anything to rescue one of his own... unless, of course, we threaten the one thing he cares more about than his Pokémon."

Serena took a step back and reached for her Pokéballs, but found none with her. "Your Pokémon are back with your friends," the man said, realising what she wanted to do. "We would've let you keep them, they're of no real use to us, but we couldn't have you having a way to fight, could we?"

"Let me go!" Serena ordered. "They'll realise I'm gone! They'll come for me!" "They'll not come anywhere near here if we threaten your if they do so," the man's sinister smirk only widened. "You get to have decent accommodations if you behave, we'll even send in a little friend for you if you're especially good, but we can just as easily take it all away, so I recommend you do as you're told. Now back to your room, you'll get some breakfast in a little while, it's just cooking."

Before Serena could protest, the man pushed her back through the door and locked her inside. Serena pounded at the door for a minute or two, yelling, but eventually curled up against the door and let a few tears escape.

For all his horrid words, that man was right. Ash would never come if it meant putting someone in danger. Especially his Greninja.

"Ash..." she wept. "I'm sorry. I should've been stronger. I shouldn't have let them take us. I'm so sorry."

~•~

"Where is he?!"

Ash had already woken the others up to help him search for Greninja's Pokéball. He'd checked inside each and every one of them, but none held the Ninja Pokémon. 

"I know I left it right here!" Ash insisted, pointing to a spot on the counter where Greninja's Pokéball had indeed been the previous night. "Maybe it fell under the counter or something?" Clemont suggested.

Ash crouched down and looked all over the floor, even under everything. He found a paperclip, some dust bunnies, some torn scraps of paper that were covered in scribbles, that sort of thing. But he found nothing of interest, unless he felt like clipping a piece of paper to a mound of dust.

"Nope," he announced, getting back up. He was growing worried now. He occasionally lost things, but not very often and usually he found them again quite fast if he really looked for them. But he'd been looking for Greninja's Pokéball for ages now and he'd never lost something so important since he first lost Serena to the end of Kanto's summer camp.

"Hey, where's Serena?" Ash remembered why he'd wanted to find Greninja in the first place. "I haven't seen her since last night," May shrugged. "Me neither," Bonnie agreed. "I think she went out somewhere," Ash shrugged, focusing back onto the task at hand. "We can find her once we find Greninja."

The search was back on. They checked the bedroom, the bathroom, Grace's room, the living room, the kitchen... all over the house, but to no avail. They didn't spot Serena, either, but right now they were more concerned about Greninja. They knew Serena could take care of herself and that she'd be back as soon as she could, but Greninja was inside a Pokéball with seemingly no way out until they found it.

Grace helped out, too, poking around in the higher spots the kids couldn't reach, though she doubted that it was likely that it was anywhere they couldn't put it. In a way, she was right.

Ash sighed and slumped onto the sofa, head in his hands, defeated. "Maybe Serena took Greninja with her?" May suggested, knowing how he felt. "Maybe she was planning a surprise for you or something and needed Greninja with her? Or maybe she just picked up the wrong Pokéball like you did?"

"Yeah, maybe," Ash mostly agreed just to ease his mind. It helped. It was very likely that Serena had just wanted to go shopping alone just so she'd get some time to herself and accidentally picked up Greninja's Pokéball instead of Braixen's. It wasn't like that hadn't happened before, in any case.

Suddenly Ash felt something pushing at his mind. He knew instantly what it was, and opened the bond between him and Greninja, who was trying to get in sync with him. He looked through Greninja's eyes and saw a room filled with scientists and lab equipment.

"What do we do with Specimen 1?" One scientist asked. "We experiment, you idiot!" Another scientist sighed, picking up a Pokéball and tossing it into the air. "Use Powder Snow, Vulpix!"

Greninja's link was severed and Ash gasped. "I know where they are!" He yelled, much to everyone's surprise. There was only one place Ash knew where a Vulpix could use Powder Snow.

"They're in Alola!"