Title: Production
Author: Shadow/Phantomness
Pairing: Championshipping (Lance x Red)
Fandom: Pokémon
Theme: #9, Production
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks. Game-verse

Warnings: AU, het

Sunlight gleamed off piles and piles of fabric, many in varying shades of white from dull to semi-transparent silk, mixed with natural tans and browns and other, various colors. Fine silk fluttered in the wind generated by the ceiling fans as the machinery hummed around them, cutting and slicing and stitching.

“Why are we here again?” Red whispered, eying the array of lingerie around him with distaste.

Lance shrugged, looking completely at ease despite the fact that there was a giant poster with a scantily clad model not a foot away from them. “Because we are undercover and we believe that this factory is actually a front for something else.” She said quietly. “Now let’s start searching.”

“O-Okay.” Red blushed, as he began to scan the racks of garments for anything that might be suspicious.

This was the most embarrassing thing ever! If the media got wind of this… he adjusted his infrared goggles with a sigh as he pulled them over his eyes. The machinery looked respectable enough, though he could have done without a crash course in fashion 101 as preparation for this trip.

Lance closed her eyes as she ran her fingertips over the fabric. Silk, as was expected, cotton, and… was that polyester over there? Bright, garish swimsuits flowed from another assembly line into a chute that led into another room. With a shrug, the Dragon Master leaped lightly onto one of the steel supports, before she glanced downwards. None of the girls sitting at their sewing machines responded. Aha…

Some of them were busy, dipping nets into giant vats of boiling water. Silkworm cocoons bobbed merrily there, while others spun threads into skeins on spinning wheels. None of them looked much older than five or six.

Well, child labor was illegal in Kanto, so there was one point against them. As she watched, one of the girls screamed, her hair caught in her loom. Another girl came over with a pair of rusty shears and snipped it off, leaving a good portion of her head bare.

Callous…

But it was better than having your scalp dragged off, was it not? She nodded quietly, and moved to another room.

In it, an old woman sat, squinting as she scribbled madly in ledgers. Lance cast her eyes around, but she saw no sign of a computer or any modern equipment here. It was almost as though she had stumbled into the past.

But wait. Where had all those swimsuits gone? She was sure she had followed in the right direction. No matter. She flicked her fingers quietly, releasing Aerodactyl, and climbed on. They glided overhead quietly.

Meanwhile, Red was in another room, watching as other children picked cotton out of hard, green balls with their bare fingers. The cotton was then run through the gin and spun into yarn. Denim, Red realized, as he went to another room and saw boiling blue yarn being dried and then twisted into cloth which the mechanized shears cut into desired shapes. Jeans!

But what was suspicious about that?

At least they weren’t making more underwear…

“There…” Lance said, smiling. “Ptera, we were lucky, weren’t we?”

The fossil dragon flashed a fanged smile as her eyes glittered gold. Yes Master… May I kill them?

“Not all of them. We’ll need one or two to confess.”

Here was the truly heinous secret.

The other rooms had been blinds. As they watched, the Pokemon were shoved into the machine. A synthesizer, Lance thought dully. She would have said more, but that was when Red rushed in the door with a sparking Zapdos behind him.

“How dare you!” The Champion shouted. “Zapdos, THUNDER!”

The men and women startled, glanced up, and in that instant, Zapdos’s electricity knocked most of them out. Lance sighed.

Since their cover had been blown, she might as well join in…

“Ptera, Hyper Beam!”

The beam smashed into the holding tanks, and the Pokémon broke free, rushing around madly trying to escape.

“Not so fast! I’m not letting you get away with this! Venomoth! Disable!”

Several of the workers froze, but one woman in a leather miniskirt simply smirked. “You think you’ll stop us? Flareon! Fire Blast that bug!”

Venomoth nimbly dodged the first shot, and as a second headed for her, a Surf attack slammed into Flareon and the woman.

Red smirked, as Poliwrath followed up with an Ice Beam, freezing them solid.

“You were saying?” He asked.

“Behind you,” Lance called, and Red ducked, even as Aerodactyl sliced deep gashes into the man’s arms, nearly cutting them off. The man howled in pain and fell to the ground.

Zapdos hit him with a Thunderwave, before he launched another Thunder, this time at the skinning machine. It exploded into tiny fragments.

“And… set.” The Champion grinned.

“… You just blew up our evidence.” His wife said, very slowly.

“Oops,” He blushed. “It’s okay. We can still interrogate them. Such a thing shouldn’t have existed in the first place, and there are more. I saw a few other rooms like this one.”

Lance nodded in understanding, as she called Officer Jenny, who showed up ten minutes later with a squad.

“It seems the problem was quite severe. They were feeding stolen Pokémon into their fabric production. They skinned them and used their skins. Not to mention that their entire labor force was drugged, while being illegal child labor as well.” Jenny paused. “Also, I think they fed the remains of the Pokémon to the kids, if you know what I mean.”

Red gagged, feeling ill, while Lance nodded.

“And their punishment?” He asked.

Jenny frowned. “It is still undecided.”

“Ahh. We shall trouble you no longer then. Come Red.”

Lance steered her shell-shocked husband away and then they both mounted Dragonite, flying back to the Plateau.

He sighed as they dismounted. “We did do the right thing, right?”

“Of course, Red.”

“But… I couldn’t save those Pokémon…”

“You can’t save the world. All we can do is help to the best of our ability.” Lance said quietly, pulling him into a hug. “We did our best.”

The black-haired teen closed his eyes with a shaky sigh, and managed a feeble nod. It was just so awful!

“You did well.”

And Red tried to believe her.

End Fic

Completed 1/6/07

Edited 8/19/09

Production is the ‘How will it be produced?’ question in the economy… and this fic is total crack, I admit freely… and the plot is truly bizarre… but it’s technically somewhat canon, I mean, it could happen in-game.

Lance: *Sighs*

Red: *Blush* I’m so insecure…

Phantomness: Not really romance-y in this one, ne? Oh well