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

Chapter 4: Suspicions

The two trainers were walking to Cerulean, Ash tossing his badge up and down while catching it, and smiling. Gary was chasing after a bellsprout that could, amazingly, run quite fast.

Gary wanted to catch every single pokemon that showed its face in front of him. Ash hadn’t caught any new pokemon yet.

“Ash…”

“Hmm?” Ash asked, looking up from his evil physics textbook. Lance-chan still forced him to study; she said it would help him. He was currently struggling with the very difficult problems detailing Newton’s gravitational constant. What a pain…

< Lance-chan… what does this have to do with battling? >
< Quite a bit. > Lance replied. < You’ll learn later, but our attacks like Frameshift and Time Stop and Reflection use physics as their base… >

Ash sighed.

“Hey, Ash! Are you paying attention to me?” Gary asked.

‘What? Oh, sorry Gary.” He looked at where Gary was holding a struggling Bellsprout.

“Do you have any spare poke balls? I’m all out.”

Ash laughed and handed Gary a few. “I’ve still got a couple dozen in my backpack.”

“Since you haven’t used any, yeah. But you need a full six to become Champion.’

This got Ash’s attention. “You do?”
“Mm-hmm, and they suggest around twenty. Better get catching, Ash!” Gary teased.

“You’re right!” Ash replied. He grinned to himself. * If only he knew… *

“Let’s go!” Gary said, dashing off into a bush.

Ash laughed as he followed. It would be interesting enough.

Elsewhere…

Drake ground his teeth. The Council had sent him after the Dark One again. He had nearly lost his neck last time! Well, he wasn’t going to lose to some abomination!

Gritting his teeth and taking the twin swords that proclaimed him a warrior of the water element, he flew off towards Kanto, the last place she had been spotted.

It was time for a rematch…

Lance sat on top of a building, her black wings fanned out behind her, polishing the two keys she had left. A faint buzzing presence alerted her to the fact that an angel was near. She sighed. Those bakas…

As if any of them were strong enough.

“What do you want?” She asked sarcastically.

The sound of gnashing teeth was heard. “To kill you and regain my honor!”

“Idiot… you lost last time.” Lance taunted as she recognized the voice. “What makes you think you can win?”
The teeth grinding became louder. Lance felt a flash of warning and she became incorporeal as a sword passed through the area she would have been in.

“Too slow…” She whispered, as she charged up a Hyper Beam and flung it at Drake. “You still want to play?”
Drake crashed into an apartment building and through a window. Lance floated outside, ice crystals dancing in her hands, waiting for him to return.

A second later, several daggers came flying out at her. She dodged twelve of them and froze the rest, so they dropped to the ground uselessly, and casually lit the building on fire.

Drake, being an angel, did have a first priority to save people, so was forced to put out the fire, thereby wasting much valuable time and energy. When he finally emerged from the building, he fell straight into a net of ice energy.

Lance scoffed. “Look, I don’t have time for this. Just leave me alone, okay? And don’t come back until you’ve found an explanation. Try asking Claire.”

“… What?” Drake asked.

“You heard me. I’m letting you go so you can find her. If you can find her, she’ll tell you the whole story, although I doubt she does.”

“…” Drake was speechless as she vanished in front of him. * Who in the world… and why? *

“I mean, it’s not like I had a choice in the matter.” Lance mused as her cards danced around her. “Wonder how Ash is doing? But Claire won’t know anyways, so… it’ll just waste a lot of Drake’s time and hopefully he’ll leave me alone. I mean, what’s with him attacking me?”

The Serebii card glowed faintly, allowing Lance a glimpse. She stifled a laugh as she saw Ash pretending to drown in a three-foot deep stream.

“Fun…”

Gary hauled Ash out of the water. “What went wrong? Oh! Hey Ash, there’s a pokemon on your leg!”

Ash blinked. “… That’s why I couldn’t move.”

“What is it?” Gary asked excitedly.

“Hmm…” Ash pulled out the Ivydex (from Professor Ivy!)

“Vaporeon.” It beeped. “No other info recorded as of now.” The Vaporeon climbed onto Ash’s lap and purred.

“Hey, it likes you!”

“Seems that way.” Ash replied, grinning.

“Cool…” Gary paused. “Let’s get going, Ash.”

“I know.” The kid replied, recalling Vaporeon to a poke ball. “I’m right behind you! Where to next?”

“Cerulean, of course! Badge, here I come!”

“Have I mentioned that the hyper nature doesn’t fit you, Gary?”

“Whatever.” The other boy scoffed. “I hate trying to be strict and perfect.”

“And with an inflated ego?”

“That’s going a bit too far, Ash!”

Ash laughed. “Maybe…”

Gary huffed and walked forwards while Ash followed him.

< Lance-chan? >

< Yes? >

< So we’re going for the championship plan. >

< Best shot now. > Lance replied. < Although I think some will be disappointed. They are quite fond of the pokemon. >

< I feel bad for Gary… > Ash whispered back.

< We can make a few exceptions… after all, it’s in our power. >

Ash nodded and closed his eyes.

“Hey, Ash! Don’t tell me you’re falling asleep already! You ok?” Gary asked.

“Huh? Oh.” Ash got up.

Gary frowned. “You’ve been spacing out a lot. You sure you’re ok?”

Ash nodded as Gary walked ahead again.

End chapter!

Completed 2/24/04

I hate physics…

In the Pokemon Special/Adventure manga, Lance and Claire and brother and sister… I always thought they were cousins.

*Edit* Later found out they were first cousins, they just call each other brother and sister