So yet another chapter…

Timeline: 4 days later

Chapter 3: Rescind

“You’re here to challenge me again?” Lance asked, raising an eyebrow as he got up. “Very well… if you win, I shall confer on you the Rising Badge.”

Ash nodded.

“You’d better win this time, Ash.” Misty growled under her breath, only loud enough for him to here.

A faint tensing in his fingers was the only sign of the trainer’s feelings as he walked to the platform.

Brock was elsewhere, busy pursuing the current love of his life, Candy May.

She had curly pink hair, a ditzy attitude, and clung to him. The perfect match, maybe?

It explained his absence at least.

“Dragonair… go.” Lance said, tossing out the sinuous blue dragon.

Ash looked nervous, but squashed it. * I have to win! I can’t let Misty down again! I have to help her get her bike back! * “Squirtle, go, Ice Beam!”

Dragonair dodged quickly, before Dragonbreath froze Squirtle and thunderbolt finished it off.

“Shoot! Pikachu, Thunderbolt!”

“You forgot dragons are strong against the basic elements…” Lance murmured. “Use Blizzard.”

Pikachu was an ice block too quickly to tell.

Misty looked ready to strangle Ash now, as Ash panicked and used Charizard.

“Surf.”

“YOU Bastard! You lost again!” Misty yelled. “What’s the point of fighting if you always lose! You’re a worthless trainer! I’ll never get my bike back! Quit wasting your time!”

“But I…”

“Shut up!” Misty shouted. “I bet you weren’t even training these last few days! You were just getting yourself lost like the stupid trainer you were! Do I have to wait until I’m thirty before I can get my bike?!”

Lance narrowed his eyes at this display.

“See, you should have forced your pokemon to evolve! You would have won, you idiot!”

With that, she hit him with a convenient branch.

Lance moved faster than eye could follow, and in the next minute, Misty found herself locked in a cage of ice.

“So that’s why…” Lance frowned. “I sensed his lack of real confidence, but I never imagined it would be from this.”

“Shut up! How dare you interfere in our relationship!”

“She’s right, Lance…” Ash whispered. “I did wreck her bike…”

“Just tell me one thing. Was it because of something like this that I found you outside the gym?”
“N-no.” Ash lied, hoping Lance would buy it.

The Dragon Master was not that dense.

“Don’t lie to me, Ash.” He said sternly.

Ash shivered as those gold eyes locked on him.

Misty huffily grabbed Ash’s arm and dragged him outside before another word was spoken, running quickly.

“Baka!” She yelled, striking him across the face, once they were out of view. “Don’t be so obvious, stupid!”

“G-gomen nasai…”

“Sorry won’t help get my bike back! You have to work! How many times do I have to say it!?”

Ash meekly listened to a long tirade, before Misty shoved him out into the grassland to train again.

He had to pay that bike back!
He had to work harder!
He couldn’t lose more time and money! Poor Misty, it was his fault she was tied down…

And her sisters made fun of her staying with him.

He had to pay her back.

He couldn’t afford to lose!

Lance watched, cloaked in dragon’s shadows, as Ash trained.

< What do you think, Master Lance? >

< Truly, Dragonair? He has serious problems. >

< So it is not only my opinion. >

< I would have to be blind not to notice… and yet… >

< Why don’t you interfere? >

Lance shook his head. < That may cause more harm than good. If he expects me to treat him the way Misty does… >

< Master… >

< No, I promised. I will not break him. I cannot! >

Dragonair sighed as her trainer brooded.

This is too complicated… I thought Chosen might be lucky in the path of life, but this is not one instance.

He was bleeding, but he didn’t care.

He was tired, but it was no matter. He had to win!
Somehow, in some way…

Misty, I won’t fail you! Ash promised.

Oh, the blind naiveté of false love…

He didn’t cry for himself, he didn’t even know he was in trouble.

Poor, poor, little one.

End Chapter