Yatto! (Finally in Japanese) A new chapter!

Disclaimer: If I owned pokemon, people writing anything but championshipping would be infringing on copyright! *Laugh* and I could sue! But I’m afraid pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Satoshi Tajiri…

Chapter 4

Have you ever betrayed someone?

Ash shook that nagging thought away, but it clung to him like a whisper of spider silk, sticky and unyielding. Have you?

Had he betrayed Pikachu and his other pokemon, by choosing a path that excluded them from his company?
Perhaps he had. Nothing could be gained for free, after all.

I’m sorry, he wanted to say. It’s not that I do not love you; it is not that… it is just that, I love him more.

He shut out images from his past life that could have been this life, and walked on.

Lavender town was gloomy, of course. Wisps of purple fog clustered around the tower, lending it an aura of despondency and fear. He did see, to his surprise, a small house occupied by a man and a few pokemon. Mr. Fuji, the man introduced himself. He was a kind of guardian for the place.

Interesting…

He went into the tower, and this time, narrowly escaped a falling chandelier. He winced as he saw the gold and glitter shatter upon the floor. However, the laughter that followed was not familiar. It wasn’t the ghosts he had remembered...

He turned around and saw Haunter, red eyes pulsing, but it looked different, almost as if it were possessed. Could a ghost pokémon be possessed?

Now was not the time to ponder though. He barely managed to stay awake through the Hypnosis attack and sent Fearow to fight against its Dream Eater, but then something hit him in the back and he fainted.

Agatha looked at his body without a flicker of disquiet. She pressed her fingers to his forehead and looked into his mind. What she saw made her pull back in surprise after several moments.

How on earth… what was he?

Well, at least it proved he was no danger to the Elite or the world, but she felt a bit… conscious of what she had seen, some of those scenes were disturbingly graphic.

It mattered little.

< He’s clean. > Two words hid an ocean of discontentment.

Lance did not bother to puzzle out the intricacies behind her words and simply nodded. This Ash Ketchum was no threat then…

But this information might be fun.

Agatha grinned. She hadn’t played matchmaker in ages…

Ash woke up to find himself lying on the ground with a poke ball next to him. It was filled, he noticed, as he picked it up. Looking inside, he was surprised and rather pleased to see Haunter. Now that was interesting…

When had he caught it? He could not remember, but it must have been right before he blacked out. He shrugged and continued deeper inside, not really knowing what was happening next. He just wanted a few minutes to feel nostalgic, he supposed.

No more strange ghostly creatures came out of the walls, either to taunt or to wave a hello, and he felt a bit saddened, but hid it well.

Surely, what he was trying to achieve was worth a few sacrifices. If it saved the pokémon, then well, why count the price??

Still, getting all the badges so quickly might draw the League’s attention. He should wait a few days before he went to Celadon, and he really should try to capture some more pokémon. He headed out into the plains around Lavender and soon netted himself a Meowth and a Vulpix.

Strangely enough, the Meowth looked a lot like Team Rocket’s Meowth, but he supposed that all cats looked alike. Besides, this one was a girl.

They knew Bite. This meant he could level them up quickly. He ran back into the tower and proceeded to train them against the numerous faceless ghosts that had suddenly appeared. It seemed that once the primary ghosts were unbalanced, the three ghost-type pokemon would split, and hundreds of other spirits would invade the tower. It had happened last time too, though he hadn’t noticed until years later.

Bite. Bite. Bite.

It took a long time, several days in fact, but Vulpix was more than happy to level up and Meowth evolved into Persian.

Now in Celadon he’d buy lots of Evolution Stones…

“So he’s not on a Team…” Lance shook his head. “But I still feel as though he has some secret agenda.”

“Don’t worry.” Agatha reassured him with a sly look, keeping a damper on her mirth. “It is nothing you need fret over.”

“I trust my Ghost Master, then. But if he continues to train his pokemon at this rate, he may become Champion even within a few months.”

“Is that why you’re worried?”

“Of losing my title?” Lance smirked. “I have no desire to deal with that horrendous paperwork avalanche. Let someone else do it. And oh, the trainer complaints are the best part.”

“And the fan mail,” Lorelei chimed in with a fake smile.

“Indeed. We all suffer, though some not as much as others.”

Agatha cackled. “You should have waited until you were my age to become Elite, then, darlings.”

“Well… that may be so, but is there any truth to the rumor that you and Professor Oak are dating?”

“Well I never!”

Lorelei perked up. “Now this I have to hear…”

“Not much to say. We were married for five years, had two kids, he got divorced and chased Professor Ivy for a bit but gave up. Who knows whom the old man is into now? He was always one for the younger types.”

Lorelei shivered. “Disgusting.”

“Yes, well, it’s the old man’s senile nature…”

“Mm.” Lance agreed. He looked at the next paper, frowned, and crumpled it into a ball, aiming for the fireplace. He missed.

Lorelei picked it up and shoved it into the flames, not bothering to read the text. “That bad, I see.”

“If that council thinks I’ll sign a bill that forces us to stay here for the rest of our lives…”

“Bureaucrats always were a bit out of touch with reality.”

“They don’t see us as people, more like statues or national treasures, that’s why.” Agatha stood up. “Well, I’m getting coffee. Anyone else want some?”

“No thanks.”

And Ash continued tracing his path towards Celadon.

End Chapter

Completed 2/13/06

Bloody writer’s block and busy schedules! Argh, housing and everything…