Title: Forty-Eight
Author: Shadow/Phantomness
Pairing: Championshipping (Lance x Ash/Red)
Fandom: Pokémon
Theme: #9, Four twelves are forty-eight
Rating: G
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

Warnings: AU, Shonen-ai, fanon

Four times twelve made forty-eight. So did six times eight. Six times eight, six different Leagues, eight gym leaders each…

Vanished into thin air, was it were.

How had it happened? No one knew.

Inspector Nesbitt puffed on his pipe as he considered the situation. He knew that Kanto and Johto had been in the midst of a civil war, so he suspected that the eight there – no wait, twelve, for the Elite Seven, the Champion, and the Gym System. Now all of them were missing.

Twenty-four gone…

Something was up, but for the life of him, he didn’t know what it was! As if that were not bad enough, all of the Hoenn and Cosmos systems had vanished too! Nine gym leaders from Cosmos plus the Champion, and then the eight gym leaders of Houen, and their two Champions, and the Elite Four...

Add Aya and that made exactly forty-eight.

Inspector Nesbitt sighed. Why had they all vanished? What was going on?

It made no sense! The only evidence though, was that Team Rocket might be behind it…

Or Team Aqua or Magma…

But what purpose would having all the powerful trainers vanish serve? It was like an invitation to chaos and anarchy…

“And that is exactly why we’ve done it.” Red smirked, as he watched the glass in front of him swirl with colors.

Lance shrugged. “Scrying again, love?”

“Mm.” Red snuggled into Lance’s embrace, sighing as he leaned his cheek against his lover’s cool armor.

“Is it for the best that we did this?”

“Of course!” Red grinned. “This way, they’ll never be able to experiment with us, and they’ll not have the badges to power Snagem’s Shadow Machine. Two birds with one stone.”

Lance chuckled. “Thinking ahead?”

“Hai!”

“Good for you.” The Dragon Master demurred, emphasizing his statement with a kiss. Red just grinned.

The badges had power. Team Snagem had discovered this fact. They would have used the energy generated therein to create a Shadow Lugia.

Such was unacceptable.

After all, Lance had a personal interest in the Dragon Lord of the Seas.

But that was nothing to do with Red, save for the fact they were both Chosen, which was very important indeed!

He held Red close as they watched Nesbitt rail, and as the days went by, the countries crashed, one after the other, and descended into despair.

And they laughed.

End Fic

Completed 11/21/06

Apparently I’ve had this laptop for almost two years. I hope it lives at least two more.