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 3

“I wasn’t expecting you to come back for a while,” Charlotte said as she looked up from her notebook. “What happened this time?”

Lance sighed. “Sha-san… for the past few days, I have felt jittery and on edge, though I know not the reason. I’ve had to increase my dosage to three pills, and today it was not enough. I had to take four. Yet, I still feel uneasy. They are not working for some reason. Have I built up a resistance?”

The psychiatrist-slash-fire-guardian-Moltres sighed. She should have known that even Articuno’s specially created ice medicine would not last forever. They had never used it on such a long time scale before. It was a wonder the pills had lasted six years at all, almost seven.

“I’m afraid so.” She said slowly. Damn it! That was the problem with suppressing a guardian’s power and their memories. Lance was easily the strongest out of the three, Ash was too careless to use his power intelligently and she herself was really just a weak little bird.

All she could do was create, and she could block her created worlds from entry, and she could happily spin out her web of lies for a time and another time, but now, Ash was still clueless and Lance was no more than a distant memory, so she had to keep the balance. It just wasn’t fair sometimes.

But on the plus side, at least it wasn’t total destruction like they had feared. She was still strong enough to balance, and there was much less to balance. Many of the pokemon had fled during the war, many of the people had died, and now, balancing was almost easy, with only a small number of lives to consider. Only Kanto was still remotely intact, the other lands were smoking ruins that would not bear life until the next cycle.

Lance shook his head. “What am I to do now, Sha-san?”

She hesitated, and felt Moltres stir sleepily in the back of her mind. Her three legendaries had all bonded to her, in all ways, after the disastrous battle. It was much safer as a focal point of power, and they leant her their support as she struggled to hold the world together waiting for the rightful owner to heal and the next cycle to begin.

It was worth a try.

The ice medicine only suppressed Lance’s emotions, and he rarely took it. It was not supposed to block memories. Only his will had allowed him to forget, for no pokemon would dare tamper with the Chosen after the Deoxys attack. Serebii sometimes remembered her mistakes and rectified the damage she had done, but not often.

But if Lance did not remember why he had wanted to forget, his will not to remember would dissolve eventually…

And now, horror of horrors, he was starting to wonder about that void in his mind, and he truly did want to know. What a mess.

Had this brief space of time, had these years healed his wounds?

She doubted it. He still cried for love lost, though he knew not the reason.

Yes, she had to help.

She had her own ways of dealing with things… and she would lend them to him.

“Here.”

He looked at her in surprise as she got up and pulled something out of a drawer. “What is this?”

There were three pretty stones strung on a necklace of fine gold wire. The Flame Ruby, which was hers, for fire. The Ocean Sapphire, his… and finally, the Topaz of Earth. That belonged to Ash.

The three guardian stones would hopefully stabilize the guardian’s errant power. They were actually pocket forms of the three guardian wands – the wands of fire, water/ice, and lightning…

If things got worse, she’d have to use sheer power to lock his power, and she didn’t think she could win.

Lance stared at the necklace dubiously, but slipped it over his neck and felt his emotions ebb to a gentle hum immediately.

“Was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about? Any reason why you suddenly had a relapse, Wataru-san?”

Lance steepled his hands and frowned. “I believe it had something to do with Ketchum-san.”

“Really? Who is he?” Inwardly, she cursed. So Lance had seen Ash. Why couldn’t that idiot of her younger soul brother let his lover live in peace for once?

“I don’t know him well, Sha-san. His daughter is in my class.”

Damn, damn, damn, count to ten, focus or else you will burst into flames like you’re apt to do in frustration. Inhale; exhale, slow, lazy movements and then another question.

“Do you remember him?”

He doesn’t sense any motive in her question, but he shakes his head. “No, but he seemed to know me. He thought that I should remember him.”

Interesting. Hopefully. Ash could not – not yet, his power was still dormant – do anything special to affect the balance.

The precious balance that was their life and their curse and their blessing and their death all at the same time…

“What did he say of importance?”

“Nothing.” Lance shook his head. “Nothing. But he said… something to the effect that he expected me to forget.”

Charlotte nodded. “Perhaps you met on your journey.”

“I think so, otherwise I would not have forgotten him so easily. I doubt we were friends.” Suddenly, a blinding pain flashed behind his eyes and he clutched the necklace. It subsided, but he frowned.

“Doushite desu ka? What happened?” Lugia, no…

“I don’t know.”

“Were you thinking about anything in particular? Sometimes ordinary objects can trigger memory flashes.”

“I…”

“Yes?”

Lance frowned. “For a second, I saw something… I think it was a pokemon, a red one…”

“So Ash’s name makes you think of red pokémon?”

“No, not that. It was when I said ‘friends’. I saw a flash of a reddish bird pokémon…”

Charlotte felt a bucket of ice settle in her stomach. “A bird pokemon… you mean, like a Fearow?”

He snapped his fingers. “Yes, that’s right. I saw a Fearow.”

“Anything else?” Please Lugia no…

“I think… there was a man, he seemed like… I don’t know, but I got a feeling of hostility from his face, and I think I saw an R on his clothing…”

“So you ran into Team Rocket on your journey. That isn’t so uncommon.” She frantically penciled in notes, hoping her mask would not crack. “Where was it?”

A frown. “I remember green grass and water. A lake, I think… it was…”

There was a moment of startling clarity, and he gasped. “Lake of Rage! I met Ash at Lake of Rage!”

Charlotte forced a fake smile onto her face and took a sip of her heavily sugared latte. “So you do remember.”

Lance nodded. “Yes, but… I can’t remember anything else. At least it’s a start, isn’t it? Well, I really should get going… same time next week?”

What the heck, he’d need it. She swallowed and nodded. “Sure.”

Damn.

End Chapter

Completed 3/6/06

I don’t really know that much about counseling, though I am going to a psychiatrist every two weeks at least. Yes, I’m a crazy depressed author.

Charlotte tries to help Lance. She likes him not much, but she doesn’t like seeing important people suffer for no reason, so after he erased his memory Lugia set her up as his psychiatrist. The problem is, Lance’s memories are coming back and Charlotte isn’t really good at suppressing stuff…

And the flashback in this chapter is the “Lake of Rage” episode beginning.

The character Charlotte is from my earliest championshipping series. She’s the fire half of the triple guardianship mentioned in my prophecy, and she’s got fire blood. She’s the weakest of all three guardians and her power lies in creation, not change like Ash or destruction like Lance. She is deathly afraid of water and the dark and loves coffee. She might be Moltres’s daughter, or her lover, it’s not really clear, but she’s Ash’s soul sister.

The wands (in gem form) that Charlotte gives Lance are the three wands of the three guardians, mentioned in CCA. They can destroy demons together. Fire identifies the target, water purifies, and lightning destroys…

When Ash mentions that he thought Lance might forget, he was thinking of the stress of their war against the Deoxys, not any magical means.