Episode 184! Yahoo!

Disclaimer: Are you still laboring under the false impression that I own pokemon? If so, then I hope Nintendo makes me the heir. *Laughs* seriously, though, all I own is Destiny, Charlotte, the idea, etcetera. So don’t steal or else I will find you.

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics for translated pokemon speech.

Timeline: 2 days later

Briememory – ok…

Link Masters – well, I think it’s gone

SS2 Megami-sama – thanks!

Ranma – I’m glad you like it. ^_^

Shaladin – ok!

Episode 184: Home on the range

“Oh give me a home…” Pika-chan sang as they walked through a grassy plain.

“Pika-chan.” Ash said warningly, as he brushed his hair out of his eyes in annoyance.

“What?”

“Your singing is driving all the wild pokemon away.”

“Oh is it? There seems to be a herd of rampaging buffalo heading for us.”

Charlotte’s head snapped up. “No…freaking… way… Rampaging Buffalo?!”

“But its true!” Pika-chan protested.

Ash quickly winced. “This means a dimensional tear! The next thing we know, there will be people falling in here!”

“Let’s go!”

Lance glared at the display on the monitor as she took a few deep breaths and winced. “This is all my fault…”

Dragonair-chan looked up. “What?”

“Dimensional tears, I can’t hold ours stable for much longer, if this keeps up Ash will be taking the test in a week.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Lance’s eyes snapped open, but instead of gold or silver, they were a pulsating, angry red.

“My duty, of course.” The guardian said, before she spread her steel wings and stepped through a portal into the mists of time.

A few minutes later, Lance sighed as she finished weaving the fabric of their reality together, putting away her staff. “This is getting harder and harder…”

“Precisely why a new guardian is needed.”

“Serebii…” Lance hissed. “I still have a bone to pick with you.”

Serebii blanched and stepped back, staring at the black energy pulsating around the ice guardian.

“What has gotten into you?!”

“You knew that I would fall to the dark, didn’t you? That my darkness and moon power would meld together to make a new magic type. And you never told me.”

“I-.” Serebii stopped short as Lance brought her hands up together, swirls of darkly tinted ice magic swirling around her.

“And now the darkness is going to take me away. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it because Ash doesn’t know!”

Lance quickly stopped herself, the magic fading away as she began to fade as well. “I’m tired of this game, you know. I just wish…”

Without anything else said, she vanished from the realm, leaving a bewildered Serebii behind. Serebii shuddered as a faint foreboding began to seep in.

Charlotte suddenly stopped. “Ash, stop.”

Ash blinked from where he was opening a portal to the realm of time. “What’s wrong, Charlotte?”

“The tear has repaired itself.”

“Oh, really?” Ash asked. “Great!”

He quickly shut down the unfinished portal and beamed. However, a frown etched itself on Charlotte’s physiognomy as she pondered something.

“Lance must have done it.”

“What’s wrong with that? Isn’t she still holding the balance?”

“That’s precisely why I’m worried. She’s weak enough trying to keep the balance steady. How can she take the stress of repairing the ways between worlds as well?”

Ash stared. “I didn’t think of that!”

“No, you wouldn’t have known.” Charlotte said. “All we can do is train you until you are strong enough to carry the flame of duty.”

Ash nodded grimly, as the full impact of what was going on finally smacked him in the face. “A-ano, what’s going to happen to Crystal if I don’t pass the test?”

A pair of gold-flecked blue eyes gravely studied him. “I’m afraid she may become dissolved into the fabric of this reality itself, and become a part of the threads that define this place. She would never exist again.”

A hollow feeling bubbled up inside of him. “No… she can’t! I won’t allow this to happen! Why? She never did anything wrong! She was always there to guide me! I can’t let this happen!”

Charlotte quickly slapped him, stopping Ash’s overflow of words as his emotions created a maelstrom of hysteria. “Ash. You have to be calm. Take the test of guardianship. Only then, can you save her.”

“There is no other way?”

“I was cowardly and escaped my fate, fleeing to a new dimension. Cosmos was a selfish creation, yes. But at least there I could pretend that I had no destiny, no path to walk. She could do the same. But would she?”

“No.” Ash said. “It’s not her character. She would never be a coward.”

“Exactly. She would rather sacrifice herself to her duty, much as we both have done in the past, instead of possibly endangering this realm and endangering you.”

“So she would… for me…”

Ash sat in silence as the shock of sacrifice hit him full force. “She would…”

It was hours later, perhaps even days, when he shook himself out of the trance. He wasn’t even sure what to think anymore. But he was not going to let Crystal, no Lance, blindly go to her death to serve his own foolish ambitions and, in the past, foolish loves.

He was a guardian, and he had his own role to play. And he would play that part to perfection, and fulfill the requirement.

To save her…

…Because, he loved her, and he did not want to lose her again…

“Mantine, Surf!”

“Electrike, Thunder now!” Ash said, then taking the initiative, “Thunderwave on whatever she summons next!”

The Diglett popped out of the ground, sending him flying, but Ash quickly activated another card, and Wingull took care of the troublesome ground type, as Electrike disabled the Staryu Charlotte had also summoned. A blazing fire burnt in his eyes as he activated his next card.

“Milotic, Rain dance and then water Pulse!”

Milotic complied, but then fell as the Thunder card downed her, in midair, Ash used his powers to switch Milotic for Steelix, who took the brunt of that attack, and then roared, freezing her for a turn.

Ash next combined the Articuno and Kyogre cards, creating a hail of icy needles, trapping Charlotte inside.

Charlotte’s eyes glowed as Firey took care of them, but then Kyogre, who had been charging up for Spout, used the attack, while Articuno unleashed the devastating Diamond Dust.

“Not bad.” Charlotte said; as she used Reality to turn the tables again, and trapped Ash in a whirl of time with Loop.

Ash was about to break out when he realized that this was the way.

“If we use Loop, we can keep me in a swirl of time until I break it! And then, I can train more.”

“Yes…” Charlotte said, after a few minute’s consideration. “That would work, but I have to keep the card activated.”

“Sorry.”

“No, we both know why we’re doing this.”

Ash nodded and began training extensively, eyes a streak of blazing gold as time passed around him, untapped and yet unleashed.

Serebii looked worried. The fire and thunder guardians were really pushing themselves to the limit, especially lightning. But he wanted to help ice so badly…

Speaking of the ice guardian, she was wrapped in a bubble of her own, pulsating an almost blue-black color, with faint bands of silver here and there, but the darkness was growing stronger and stronger…

Charlotte felt herself slipping into an unnatural sleep, as her own flame bubble surrounded her, keeping her locked inside and feeding energy into the Loop card so Ash could continue his training, until he broke the magic.

Ash gulped down three Max potions, gasping as he felt a little bit more magic return to his body. * I have to keep training… I have to… *
< Ash! Magic trance, now! Before you go insane! > Pika-chan snapped.

Ash’s eyes widened and he realized the veracity of her statement. < All right… >

The waves surrounded him as he entered the dream realm again, where the pokemon cards waited…

End Episode.

Major darkness in this one, hopefully it will get better. Drop a review! Flames will be used to burn down evil reviewer’s houses.

Completed 9/17/2003

Started 9/13/03