Title: Blessing or Curse
Author: Shadow/Phantomness
Pairing: Championshipping (Lance x Ash/Red)
Fandom: Pokémon
Theme: #10, Loyalty
Rating: PG
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, Mind control, shonen-ai, Master/pet, fluff, angst

Pokémon are incredibly loyal to their trainer. It’s a combination of the conditioning that they undergo inside the poke ball, coupled with the injections and additional conditioning the Pokemon Centers provide. The gym badges only enhance the control trainers can exert, and the League is very serious about safety, even going so far as to mind-wipe the pokémon when they are transferred from one trainer to another via link cable or trading machine.

If a human were caught in a poke ball, the same results would be expected, right?

Red purrs, as Lance runs his fingers through his hair, pausing to touch his tufted golden ears. He’s a kitten, quite cute, and absolutely loyal.

Sometimes, he feels remorse, because if he could have saved Red from Team Rocket’s crazy gene-splicing experiments another way, he would have done it, but the alternatives would have likely killed him or driven him mad, and being a pet isn’t such a bad life, so he takes good care of Red and feeds him cream and fresh fish and grooms him and plays with him and sleeps with him at night.

And Red, if any of his original personality remains after they tried to merge him with a Meowth, is happy enough, and never claws him.

It’s not perfect, but it’s all they have left, and so they cope.

And every morning, Red wakes him up with a kiss and a purr, demanding breakfast, and a new day begins.

Deep down, Lance is despairing, but that part of him cries in silence while the rest of him enjoys his new pet.

End Fic

Completed 9/14/06

Yeah, depressing fluff… how is that even possible?