Lance is a cold, cold person, isn’t he? Well, maybe Ash can defrost him a bit! ^_~
Or she’s going to be suffering soon… er… maybe not. *Hentai Grin*
Disclaimer: If I owned pokemon, Misty wouldn’t exist!
Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks!
I’m not sure if the championshipping is one-sided or two-sided yet, there will be hints and more interaction later. I promise.
Ashline is Ash, just as a girl, because I didn’t feel like making Lance the girl this time.
Chapter 4
Ashline woke up to find Lance bending over her. “Eek!”
“Are you awake now?”
“What-what happened, Lance?” She said, as memory began to come back. “I remember a pokemon attacking me…”
“Yes, be careful with your right hand. The Meowth bit you pretty good…”
“Ouch! Was it – was it a shadow pokemon?”
“I can’t tell, remember? But it poisoned you, so I guess it was… you fell asleep almost as soon as I started doctoring you up. How do you feel?”
“My head is spinning…”
“Might be dehydration, here.”
Ashline accepted the bottle of water gratefully and winced as she tried to open it with her left hand – she wasn’t used to having her right hand useless…. Lance sighed, opened the water for her, and waited as she drank, blushing at her helplessness…
“Did you – what happened to the Meowth?”
“I captured it,” Lance said. “I wonder how it worked? It technically counts as stealing pokemon….”
“Um… maybe poke balls work on shadow pokemon?”
“Well, the owner did run off after the Meowth bit you…”
“Oh!” Ashline grinned. “Well, maybe… I don’t know… um… at least the Meowth is safe now, right?”
Lance gave her a sideways glance. “If this pokemon attacks people, why would I be safe if I captured it?”
“Er… if it tries to attack you, you have other pokemon!”
Lance sweatdropped. Ash flushed again.
“Never mind…”
Lance noticed that once he had captured a shadow pokemon, he could see purple bars on their data – pokedex helped, of course… let’s see… both their hearts – the doors to their hearts were starting to open?
Oh, that wasn’t good, he wanted pokemon with dark hearts – or, he could figure out how the doors were opening and remember not to do that when he got home and made his own shadow pokemon. That would work…
“Where are we now, Lance?”
“Pyrite Town.” Lance said. “The hotel was the safest place, so I got us a room. I hope you don’t mind?”
Ashline shook her head frantically, trying to ignore the blush rising in her cheeks again. Lance looked outside the window, where plenty of trainers milled around.
This would be interesting...
Perhaps battling with his shadow pokemon would open their hearts… after all, battling raised happiness in normal pokemon. It was worth a try.
Well, he’d see how things turned out…
What else raised happiness in normal pokemon? Well, vitamins, berries, special healing drinks… walking and hatching from an egg…
Let’s see how this goes…
“Lance? Now what?”
“I don’t know, Ashline. Should we go investigate the town?”
Ash blushed. “Oh… yes, that would be good… maybe there are some Team Snagem grunts here…”
“Let’s go then.”
They left the hotel and went outside.
“I challenge you!” A girl yelled as soon as she watched them step out of the hotel. Lance rolled his eyes. * I knew it… *
This town was a free-for-all, no-holds barred battling arena. It reminded him of the town with the Yaz and Kaz gyms back in Kanto…
“Go! Gulpin and Zubat!”
“Meowth, Natu, go!” Lance tossed out the two shadow pokemon he had just captured. Now if he looked carefully, he could see their empty eyes and a hint of purple flickering around their forms… interesting….
Ashline watched the Gulpin and Zubat carefully, but they seemed normal enough.
“Zubat, use Bite! Gulpin, use Sludge!”
Lance smirked. “Meowth, Natu, use that attack you have! Shadow Rush!”
Both pokemon began to glow with purple light. However, Meowth refused to attack. Natu did.
Lance blinked and checked his pokédex. “Meowth’s emotions rose to a fever pitch? It entered Hyper Mode… whatever… does that mean it can’t attack?”
Natu and Meowth attacked… the second turn, shadow rush again… Lance watched as Meowth took out Gulpin in one hit, but Natu needed two hits on Zubat. Interesting…
So Shadow Rush does something…
“Lance, call your pokémon out of Hyper Mode!” Ashline called.
“What?” Lance asked, as he recalled his pokemon, having won.
Ashline sighed. “Too late.”
“What are you talking about?”
Pink stained the trainer’s cheeks as she looked down. “Well… I’ve heard that if you call a pokemon out of Hyper Mode, then it will listen to you… you can also call pokemon awake if they fall asleep….”
Interesting. No need to play his blue flute then… and no need to waste money on Awakenings…
That was useful.
Would calling pokemon make their hearts open more? He’d try in a second… another trainer was eyeing him speculatively.
Time for another battle…
“Go! Mysdreavus and Zigzagoon!”
Ashline’s eyes lit up. “Lance! There’s a shadow pokemon! That Mysdreavus!”
“What do you want me to do about it?” Lance asked, as Natu and Meowth went out into battle again.
Both used Shadow Rush, not having any other attacks… at least not usable ones… Meowth’s did more again. So that was what Hyper Mode did… it raised the attack power of Shadow Rush…
Why would anyone bother calling Shadow pokemon out of Hyper Mode then?
Meowth had taken the Zigzagoon out, and Natu had taken a small portion of the Mysdreavus’s HP bar off…
Pink fur flashed as a Skitty replaced the fallen Zigzagoon…
“Meowth, Shadow Rush the Skitty again….” Lance said, as Natu did the same to Mysdreavus. Mysdreavus’s eyes flashed…
Confuse Ray on Meowth. The cat hurt itself in its confusion! Lance sweatdropped. It was bound to happen….
Natu Shadow Rushed the Mysdreavus again, it had about 1/3 HP left… for Meowth’s turn, Lance was going to feed it a Bitter Berry, but…Meowth wouldn’t touch it. His Yellow Flute didn’t work either. How odd…
Looked like that was a drawback of Hyper Mode…. no matter… it was enough information for now. “Meowth! Snap out of it!”
Meowth’s eyes focused, as Natu Shadow Rushed he Mysdreavus one last time… there!
“Mysdreavus, use Shadow Rush!”
Lance watched… two HP left. Good. It was time… He took a Great Ball out of his backpack and threw it forwards…
Mysdreavus was caught!
Oddly enough, Leon seemed completely unaware of the fact that his pokémon had been stolen. He handed over $301 since he lost…
Ashline clapped. “Yay! You saved the Mysdreavus!”
Ah, well, he could use a ghost-type, and ghost was close to dragon, relatively… he recalled Meowth and Natu and walked onwards…
“Hey! You’re walking into Duel Square! If you come here, you’d better be ready to battle!”
Lance smirked. This would be fun…
“Go, Skiploom and Oddish!”
“Lance! The Skiploom!”
All right this was getting a bit annoying… but he would listen to Ashline until he captured all the shadow pokémon…
He easily stole the Skiploom, Oddish was easy to beat – Natu had regained one of its attack slots, Peck, and so had Meowth, with Scratch…
Meowth’s heart bar had less purple in it though, so its heart was open wider… so calling pokemon out of Hyper Mode did open their hearts more…
Then, after the Skiploom, there was a Flaafy, and a Slugma, and a Quagsire and then after that, a Vibrava…
Vibrava could evolve into Flygon, and he didn’t have that pokemon, so he was glad to capture it…
End Chapter
Completed 7/11/05
Lance: Well, I seem kind of IC – manga IC.
Phantomness: You’re cooler in the manga, Lance
Ash: ^^