Title: The way home

This is a sequel to Wanderer

Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfic belongs to me

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks

Pairings: Ash x Lance (championshipping),

Chapter 1

Perhaps a week had passed, but they couldn’t stay at Karen’s. That brought back too many memories, both sweet and sour.

It was Lance who suggested they hit the summoning world.

“Why?”

“Because it will be a change of place, a change of atmosphere, and you won’t have death hanging over you oppressively.”

It did sound awfully tempting though…

So he agreed.

“Before we do that though, you’d better get acquainted, shall we say?” Lance closed his eyes as he took Ash’s hands in his.

Ash quashed any potential feelings of nervousness.

Lance _wouldn’t_ hurt him!
Unfortunately, he did not have the privilege to say the same…

It didn’t hurt. It made his mind itch a little, almost as if he were trying not to sneeze inside his head, but…

Wow…

The summoning world was a really different place. That was all he could say. Lance’s memories ran up to about age eleven, and then they switched over to life here.

Still, it was enough information to get himself somewhat oriented.

“It’s all right if we keep our outfits. They wear practically everything there.” Lance reassured him.

Ash smoothed his dark green kimono-ish robe self-consciously. “Are you sure?” Underneath, he wore black pants, white socks, and black shoes… at least that’s what it looked like.

Lance shrugged. “I won’t be able to see in either case, so what does it matter?”

There was no malice in his tone, but Ash still winced.

“Shall we, then?”

The teen took a deep breath and nodded, before they went hurtling through time and space and landed.

“One last warning.” Lance said, as the wind rushed past their ears in the tunnel of light to travel. “Almost everyone has a dimensional duplicate here, including you. Remember that they are completely different people…”

Ash promised, and then they landed.

He looked around, before sighing. “Lance?”

“What is it?”

“Heavy…”

That was all Ash managed to say before he was buried in a mountain of poke balls. “HELP!!!”

Lance blinked. * Odd… what happened? *

One ball opened, revealing Chansey.

“Chansey, what is it?”

All his summoned pokemon… are… shall we say, smothering him? He’s buried under a mountain of poke balls.

“Oh dear…”

“HELP!!!”

Lance whipped out his fan, and made several sweeps in midair. The energy projected through the fan managed to clear just about all of the poke balls away.

Ash scrambled to his feet. “I can’t take all of them with me! There’s too many!”

“Yes, that is true…” Lance paused. “Well, maybe you could ask someone to keep them for you…”

And that was how they wound up at Oak’s lab.

Ash gave him his pokemon for keeping, taking only Pidgeot, Chansey, and Gyarados, his personal favorites.

“So what is your name?”

“Ash-.” Lance clapped a hand over his mouth with stunning accuracy. “His name is Red.”

“Red? All right Red! I don’t know where or how you captured all these pokemon, but I won’t ask questions. However, it costs an annual fee of $500 dollars to keep pokemon at my lab.”

“That’s fine,” Ash said, once he was able to talk. “Bill me later?”

“Sure, but the Indigo League will be on your tail if you don’t pay.”

Ash gulped and nodded, before they exited.

“Why Red?”

“Because, _Red_, if you said your name was Ash, he’d think you were insane... Remember your double?”

“Oh yeah…”

“Granted, now you could probably pass yourself off as this world’s ‘Ash’s’ older brother, so…why not have a little leverage?”

The two of them walked onwards.

“Lance, how did you know where I was?”

“Baka~!” Lance said affectionately. “You know I can sense your energy very well, otherwise even with sight how would I be able to hit pressure points?”

“Oh.”

“And with a fan.” Lance said, whacking Ash lightly on the arm.

Ash blushed. It seemed too… right, like they had gone back in time before all the death and…

No, he wouldn’t think about that now.

He clamped down on the thought and tried to focus on something more pleasant.

They walked onwards.

A slight breeze blew through the grass. “This place seems familiar…”

“Well, your house was located in our world’s equivalent of this area.”

“Ah…”

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

Ash admired the pokemon running around, smiling. “Hai.”

Lance did not bother to use his eyes. People didn’t really ‘do’ stealth here. He didn’t need sight right now…

“I have a question… was there anywhere in particular you want to go, Red?”

“I don’t’ know…”

“Well, it doesn’t matter.”

And truly, it didn’t. Right now, they had a few seconds of peace…

End Chapter 1

Completed 8/31/04