I really hate Microsoft Word sometimes. Quit eating my Auto Text, you rotten thing!

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 – Ash’s POV, kind of

He wasn’t sure when they first kissed. He thinks that it might have been when Lance hugged him after he beat Koga, and she was so close that it didn’t really matter. It as just a brief touch, almost an accident, but it must have been decreed by some higher power, because he clung to her afterwards and wouldn’t let her go.

He still has problems thinking of Lance as ‘her’. So he doesn’t think about it. He still calls her Aniki or Lance-aniki, and she just smiles. He wonders…

Did she want to be a boy? Is that why she wears night-black with armor hidden underneath, is that why her dark powers hide so much of her true form?

She’s not ugly as a girl – he’s seen her once or twice, dressed in crimson and gold and black so dark it made his heart ache in pain, for she’s perfect, perfect shadows, almost queenly… and she’s powerful too, much more than him, she’s a legendary’s child after all.

And sometimes he wonders why she likes him back, but not often, because really, who would bother to question something so perfect?

Why would you try to investigate what cannot be explained?

She’s killing people. Should I be angry? I remember when she told me about the murders… I remember when she told me about the prophecy…

“Did you ever wonder why you always got lost?”

We were sitting in the cave, and it was dark, and my legs hurt, because I’d tripped over a rock like the clumsy kid I was, and no, just because you turn into a vampire does not automatically mean that you become elegant and graceful and beautiful.

“Why I get lost?” I echoed dumbly.

She – well, I still thought of her as he at that time, smiled. “Don’t tell me it doesn’t happen.”

“Well, yes, I used to get lost all the time as a kid, but then, as I got older, it happened less, otherwise mom wouldn’t have sent me off on my pokemon journey.”

“Ah,” He smiled. “That makes sense. Would you like to hear a story?”

I liked stories – I still do. I was eager, and it had taken my mind off the pain after all.

He began to talk, and for several hours I just listened, mesmerized, to tales about legendary pokemon, and elite trainers, but finally, he got to me.

“You have a kind of empathy rings out the nurturing instinct in everyone, especially mothers. The pokemon love you because you can bring them freedom, the humans because you can bring them peace, but you cannot do both…”

“Of course I’ll help the pokemon!” I remember saying.

“I don’t like people…”

“Why not?”

He shook his head. “They’re substandard creations. Don’t you know how humans came to be? They were a punishment – a form without any special powers or abilities. They’re fallen nymphs, sprites, faeries who have broken the laws of nature. They’re angels who fell from glory. They’re pokemon who were punished. They’re psychics who tried to rule the world.”

Those were humanity’s ancestors…

I tried to protest, but I couldn’t look away from his eyes, and they held me there and forced me to look into truth.

I cried myself to sleep after that. But it was all right, he fed me and held me and didn’t complain even when I cried again the next day.

The tears stopped coming after though. I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter.

And Lance told me that when I was old enough, he’d teach me how to use my power properly, but for now, I just had to work on growing up, so I vowed to.

And that’s where I am now.

She comes in with her hands covered with blood and giggling madly, and it should scare me, but it doesn’t. I know better. And I watch as she cleans herself up and hugs me and tells me I’m the cutest thing in the world.

It’s weird, no! It would be weird if she didn’t.

I miss her when she’s gone.

I think something happened that neither of us intended. I don’t think that just making someone a vampire makes him or her that close. I think it’s something else.

Lance has a lot of secrets.

I don’t know if I should be jealous or not. In any case, I went through her stuff when she wasn’t home, checked her phone book and planner to see if there was anything interesting there.

She had the gym leader’s down, not really in any particular sort of order, and a few comments, Lorelei and Clair listed as cousins, and I didn’t know Agatha was her grandmother!

Would that make her related to Gary? Eew!

No, I’m overreacting. Besides, she didn’t put ‘sister’ next to Karen’s phone, so maybe, it’s some weird relationship, or she just thinks of Agatha as a grandmother. They all live at the Indigo Plateau, or they should be.

But as long as no one gets past Lorelei, and no one has, it’s all right. She can stay here with me.

It’s nice.

I sound obsessive, don’t I? Well, I guess I am. She’s perfect and she sparkles and I love how she reminds me of a blizzard, a thunderstorm, a typhoon maybe, or the flash of a blade before it kills someone.

Like that ugly girl who tried to steal my Squirtle.

Like that cheater who punched me to the ground after I beat him fair and square.

Like the idiot who shoved me into a wall so I got bruised. She wasn’t happy about that. She wasn’t happy at all.

I’m not sure if he can go out of the hospital yet.

You know, at first I thought our relationship might be weird. She did change me after all, so she’s technically my blood mother, right? But it wasn’t really. She’s just… like a big brother except she’s in love with me. And she’s slightly crazy. What’s wrong with that?

I love her.

She loves me.

That’s all we need.

The prophecy can wait. I still need to grow up after all!

End Chapter

Completed 7/21/05

Please bunny doesn’t die on me. Be a good bunny!