Keep the juice flowing!

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

Warning: You had better be aware of Phantomness’s writing trends to understand quite a bit of this fic. I’ll post notes in the end of each chapter, but it’d still help…

Chapter 6

“Oh? Your teacher is sick?”

“Wataru-sensei hasn’t been at school for a week.” Amy informs her father as she grabs a cookie from the plate. “Our substitute is Kosaka-sensei, and she is mean!”

He nods absentmindedly as he turns a page in the newspaper. Nothing interesting really strikes his eye, until he sees the date.

And he reads it again.

And he allows it to click in his mind.

And he remembers…

He woke up to find Misty shivering against his side, their clothing strewn around them and a feeling of satisfaction rising in his body. He hurriedly dresses, and she follows, and they rush out of their temporary shelter for the night, expecting to see more Deoxys descending from the sky.

But there is nothing.

The silence is unnatural after all these months of war, and he can’t understand why it’s silent, until he sees Lorelei lying on the ground.

She’s not dead yet, though she won’t last long. She’s been bleeding all night.

“What happened?” He asks, and she weakly mumbles out a reply that is almost too faint to catch. But he hears her, and he gasps.

Lance summoned Lugia and won the battle.

So that was what happened after he passed out.

But now, both of them are gone.

And despite whatever happened with Misty last night, he feels as if his heart has been torn apart.

And he cries.

He cries for the world. They’ve lost so much, even though they’ve won.

But there is no one to dry his tears, except Misty.

And she’s there, and so close, and a friend, that for a moment, he can’t quite comprehend her, but then he looks up.

And he realizes that he’s fallen in love again.

And it’s all right, because she won’t die.

“He won’t wake up.”

Charlotte sighs as she looks at the prone form of the Ice Guardian. “I’m going to bet you that Catelyn and Crystal were the ones who did this.”

Lugia grieves, and shakes his head. “I don’t understand. They should allow him to live his choice. He’s the one in control, isn’t he?”

“Was,” Charlotte reminds him dryly. “But he’s not Lance anymore.”

They look at the slow rise and fall of the man’s chest, sleeping there so peacefully under the blue coverlet.

They sigh.

And then they go make more coffee and continue the vigil.

He is confused, because he wakes up in a grassland full of pokemon, and there’s a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes who looks too familiar, and then another girl in black armor who he feels as if she should know.

She frightens him.

They try to talk to him, but he doesn’t like this dream, so he doesn’t hear a word they say.

He just wants to go home.

She is silent, and though fire is not a sneaky element, she is watching.

She sees him leave.

The gates are opening.

She returns to her body and informs his Father, and they prepare for the worst.

It never comes.

He doesn’t understand why he slept for a week. It isn’t possible. But Sha-san just shakes her head and his Father brings him chicken noodle soup and okay, maybe once in a while it’s nice to be treated like an invalid, and they don’t ask any questions.

He falls asleep again, and this time, there are no dreams.

All he sees is a black void filled with stars.

For some reason, it’s a lot more comforting than a grassland full of pokemon.

He doesn’t know why.

The visitor is unexpected, and both of them want to kill him, but that might summon Destiny and then they’d be screwed.

In any case, Ash wants to see a sick friend and Charlotte and Lugia just sigh.

It should be okay.

After all, the Onyx Seal is still holding.

“Hi.”

Lance looks up from his soup, and suddenly, he feels… strange again. But this time, the necklace isn’t helping. It’s making the pain worse.

A million lifetimes flash before his eyes and he screams.

And the seal cracks.

One thing Charlotte and Lugia forgot.

When the Onyx Seal was broken, it took two guardians to repair it. Herself and Ash. And to seal Bob, they needed Lance’s power, even from a dimension away.

And now, Lance has all three wands of power around his neck, even in mini form.

That’s all the warning they get before everything literally explodes.

And when the dust clears, it’s not Wataru-san looking out at them.

It’s Lance.

End Chapter

Completed 3/6/06

Destiny is the first of Ash’s guardian forms. He’s quite insane but also quite in love with Lance. He has talons instead of legs, tufts of white feathers on his ‘thighs’, a three-feathered tail, one pair of gold wings and another pair that varies in color from white (human and pokemon coexistence) to black (must annihilate human race). He’s pretty uncontrollable, unlike Ash’s other two forms.

The Onyx Seal was used to seal the dark apprentice, named Bob, in the CCA series. This took place during the Card Captor Ashura Arc notably named, CCA: Dark Apprentice.

Each Guardian has three forms, plus a base. Charlotte’s are Messenger (Wind), Fire Guardian, and Master of Revealing Light. Lance’s are Ice Guardian, Dragon Master, and Master of Dark Illusions. Ash is Destiny, Hope, and Master of Hidden Shadows, with Thunder Guardian in there somewhere. But none of these are perfectly set and they often have several minor forms as well.

Charlotte’s forms are always female and Ash’s are usually male, with Ashline as an exception. Lance is the most flexible and can switch male to female with no problem usually. In some lives she’s a girl, in other’s he’s a boy, and sometimes it’s a life where s/he can switch back and fourth. This is for clarification of course.

Heh! Cliffhanger! So, will true love prevail? Stay tuned!