Adaptivetheme Subtheme usage I'm using Adaptivetheme with the pixture_reloaded sub-theme. Keep in mind, it's structured as:

Adaptivetheme
  -Adaptivetheme_Subtheme
      -Pixture_Reloaded


I'm creating custom edits to template.php to add a node preprocess which creates a custom variable for me, and then editing node.tpl.php to add my variable to the output.

Editing adaptivetheme_subtheme node.tpl.php and adaptivetheme_subtheme node preprocessor gives me the output I want. I understand that the best practice is to edit the sub-theme files... 

In my case is the "sub-theme files" the adaptivetheme_subtheme files or the pixture_reloaded files?

Pixture_reloaded itself doesn't have a node.tpl.php file, so I've tried copying both the one from adaptivetheme and adaptivetheme_subtheme to the pixture_reloaded directory, but it's like it never reads the file.

EDIT: 


  Pixture_reloaded itself doesn't have a node.tpl.php file, so I've
  tried copying both the one from adaptivetheme and
  adaptivetheme_subtheme to the pixture_reloaded directory...


I had shutdown my server yesterday, and after bringing it back up, my output was correct.

I had cleared out the cache in the backend of the site... shouldn't that have done it for me?
To answer my own question, pixture_reloaded is the sub-theme I want to edit, as that is the last child/sub theme in the hierarchy.