Disclaimer: I’ll put it again. POKEMON IS NOT MINE! I do not own the Count of Monte Cristo either.

And… <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks~!

Chapter 3: Secrets and… escape?

The next day, Lance had headed to the room for his usual lesson when he saw Charlotte collapsed on the floor of her cell.

“What’s wrong?” He demanded and quickly dropped to her side.

“The medicine…” She gasped out. Lance understood and quickly opened the wall section, took out the vial of red medicine, and poured two drops down her throat.

Approximately thirty minutes later, Charlotte finally relaxed and began to regain color. “I see I do not have much time yet.”
“What do you mean?” Lance asked.

“I suffer from a species of stroke, I suppose you could call it. This is the second attack. When a physician checked me over at the last prison I was at, it was discovered that if I had a third attack it would be fatal.”

“But you’re not even forty! You can’t die yet!”

Charlotte shook her head. “I do not know when the third attack will come, but I fear that now we must abandon all plans of escape.”

Lance stared at her with wild eyes. “Why?”

“Our original plan was to escape after stunning the two guards in the corridor that guard the wall. Then we would have swum to safety. For this reason we built the tunnel outwards. But now… feel my left arm.”

Lance did, and it was no more than a dead weight.

“You see? I cannot swim, paralyzed in one arm.”

“I’ll carry you on my back.” Lance told his only friend. “I’m a strong swimmer.”

Charlotte seemed to laugh slightly. “It would not work. As a sailor you know you could not possibly swim more than a hundred yards and then we both would perish.”

“But I can’t just leave you here! You’ve helped me so much.”

“You’re still young, and if you escape, you’ll have a bright future, whereas I am old and have not much left.” Charlotte said. “You will be fine.”

“But!” Lance shook his head. “It is no honor to leave a comrade behind. I make you this vow. As long as you are alive, I will not attempt to escape.”

Charlotte started, amazed at the nobility of the young man. “Very well.”

Sometime in the two months that followed, the two had managed to unravel the mystery surrounding lance’s imprisonment. It had been quite clearly revealed that together, Giovanni DiRocketti, Zackie Danglars, and Gold de Villefort had contrived, for the sake of furthering their own ambitions, this false charge against Lance.

Zackie had written the denunciation.

Fernand had mailed it, and Villefort, or Gold, as he had been known as, had sentenced Lance to spare himself the revelation of his father’s guilt.

Indeed, it is amazing how heartless man could be.

Also during these two months were revealed the location of the treasure of Monte Cristo, how it was concealed deep within the grottos on the island, and how, the treasure would now belong to Lance, as Charlotte had no hope of escape.

It was the beginning of the third month, the eight year of Lance’s imprisonment, when one day, he heard the familiar, shrieking cry. His eyes widened as he quickly scuttled through the passage.

Indeed, Charlotte was deep in the throes of the third attack.

Lance quickly waited, staring with horror at her convulsed form. When ten minutes had passed and no signs of improvement had been shown, he quickly tipped four drops of the red medicine down her throat.

This caused another series of paroxysms, and she shuddered and flailed, before seizing up, jaws clamped down and limbs locked inwards.

Lance, terrified, waited a bit longer, then, prying her jaws apart with a short knife, managed to tip the entire contents of the second vial down.

This time, a shrill cry rent itself from her throat, and then she lay still.

Half an hour later, Lance was praying for the soul of his dead friend, whom he had once again cast the illusion of maleness on, when he heard the steady step of the gendarmes on the floor, so he quickly exited, sealed the passageway, and was lying on his bed staring at the wall when the gendarme entered and left his food.

He could hear the rude talk of the soldiers, and soon a doctor had been dispatched, confirming the state of affairs.

“Truly dead.” The doctor said, shaking his head. “There is nothing to be done.”

“Should we say a mass for his soul?”

“No, the chaplain has left.”

“Well, he was a priest, God will not let his soul go down into the depths of hell.”

“It is amusing though, that with his millions, he could not buy himself even a shroud.”

“Ah, the shrouds of the Chateau d’If are not so dear!” One barked out, a harsh, raucous burst of laughter.

“Indeed, he was an amiable prisoner, offering millions for his release, promising much, but he was an amusing old man. I’m sorry to see him dead.”

“Well, we shall bury him to-night at seven. Nothing more can be done.”

When Lance dared to enter the room again, he found Charlotte, or rather, l’Abbé Faria, body wrapped in a thick, layered weaving shroud.

He sadly finished a prayer for his dead friend. It was then that a terrifying thought occurred to him.

“Oh my god! What am I to think of this? But it is a way? Could it work?” Lance’s baby blue eyes stared blindly at the corpse, and suddenly, they set, a steely blue now, and his resolution was made.

He quickly slit the coarse sack, carried the body back through the passageway to his own room, covered it with the sheets, and himself climbed in. Then, sewing up the shroud with a fishbone needle and thread, he sealed himself inside and waited.

It is impossible to describe the horror the poor sailor lad was going through. But promptly at seven, the gendarmes came, and lifting the body, exited the prison.

Lance lay still. * Where are they taking me? *

“He seems rather heavy for such a frail old man.”

“Madness adds much weight.” A second retorted.

“Have you tied the knot?”

Lance blinked. * A knot? What for? *

However, soon, his keen senses caught the crispness of the sea air. * The sea? *

Then, suddenly, he felt a heavy knot being tied around his ankles, and intense pain shot through his legs. He bit his lip hard to keep from crying out.

“Ready, heave, ho!” Shouted the man, and they began swinging the shroud.

On the third try, they flung him, and he felt himself falling down, down, down. A cry tore itself from his breast as he plunged into a shock of icy cold water.

The sea is the cemetery of the Chateau d’If.

End Chapter 3….

Completed 6/9/03

Yep, Charlotte died. I like her, but she’s not that important…