DISCLAIMER: Pokémon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfic belongs to me under international copyright laws.

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

Chapter 5

He was jumpy, but Agatha didn’t notice it. His lesson ended quickly and then he went to find Lance. Apologize?

The spear wasn’t too bad… she didn’t really yell, so that was good.

Lance did not look up from his scroll, surveying a portrait done in black ink. “So you came.” He said flatly.

“H-hai…”

Lance did not reply, before he leapt at Ash, his fan striking two pressure points, letting Ash drop to the floor.

“Ah!” Surprised, off guard, and now paralyzed.

“Didn’t I _tell_ you to watch for surprise attacks? Oh, I forgot. You’re too busy thinking about her.” Lance scoffed. “For today’s lesson, you can try to move after those pressure points I’ve hit.”

Ash struggled, trying to call up his inner strength, but for some reason, today it was so _hard_, it hurt…

He didn’t like the pain.

So he waited for it to wear off on its own.

It didn’t. Koga found him still lying immobilized on the floor while Lance was engrossed in a different scroll, and sighed.

“Lance, could you undo them?”

“He didn’t even try.” Something tinged Lance’s voice, Ash couldn’t tell what, but apparently Koga could. Said teacher got up and tapped the other points to free Ash from paralysis, before waving him off.

He didn’t even try to use his inner strength… what a waste of skill…

Koga didn’t tell him to attack today. Instead, he told Ash to go through all the sword exercises he knew. The boy obeyed, correcting a point whenever Koga pointed it out. To his surprise, such easy strokes seemed to have increased in difficulty overnight, and Koga was rather red-eyed and angry by the time the lesson was over. (Red eyes meaning anger, not crying…)

It didn’t get any better with Surge. He completely forgot to sit up straight in the saddle and bounced all the way down the slope. After a few minutes, Surge yelled that if he wasn’t going to try that he should just go and stand horse stance. This shocked Ash, the punishment hadn’t been used in months, but he let Strawberry go graze and went and stood horse stance.

Bob made him do the same thing. However, that wasn’t really new. Bob had mainly given up on teaching him.

Aya gave him a lecture on trident history instead of making him fight, which he appreciated, but…

Didn’t she think he was good enough?

The trident didn’t’ feel right in his hands today, too… heavy? Impossible! He’d learnt to deal with the weight, hadn’t he?

By the time Bruno had finished with the nunchucks, he was feeling winded. He had also hit himself in the head more than a few times. A nice shiny purple bump was rising upon the noggin.

Bruno looked ready to explode.

“So?”

“No choice.” Lance laughed bitterly. “Oh, yes, forgive me. There is always another choice. There is just no _right_ choice.” He tossed his fan up and down, catching it every time. “Not a nice choice, is it?”

“Would you stop beating around the bush and get to the point?” Bob growled.

Aya sighed. “What Lance says is that we have to do something.”

“Precisely.” Koga backed her up. “However, due to… problems, shall we say, it wouldn’t be wise to proceed this way.”

“However, unless something else shows up, we don’t _have_ much of a choice.” Agatha finished.

Lance was still fan tossing, when Ash ran in, blowing the curtain separating the room aside in his haste. “You can’t!”

“You were listening?” Bob gasped.

“Yes, he was listening.” Agatha sighed. “Would it have changed anything?”

“Most likely not.” Lance rejoined.

Sometimes, it seemed those two were in their own little world, the first and second star that glittered, and the rest of them were dull, but…

“You can’t stop me from seeing Sarah! I won’t let you kill her!”
“Who said we were going to do that?” Surge roared, getting to his feet as he grabbed his two-tailed whip.

The noise abruptly pushed Ash back for a few minutes. “You aren’t going to?”

“Did we _ever_ imply that?” Koga drawled. So he wasn’t exactly in the best of moods. Who was, at this point?
“I…I thought…”

“Can you even think?” This mocking retort bit deep into his mind, he could almost feel the mental fingers peeling away his brain in layers, reaching into his heart, and… it was black, and it was going to kill him… kill! Kill!

He screamed.

He came too, Aya was putting cool cloths on his forehead and his mom was busy walking in with a tray of soup, but he couldn’t _remember_ what had happened. Nothing? It couldn’t be…

*********************End Flashback**********************************

Ash abruptly snapped back to reality and stared at Lance.

“You- did you-…”

“Honestly, Ash, if I killed every girl you ever crossed paths with, what would the population be now?” Lance laughed, each staccato burst of sound almost painfully shrill. It wasn’t like him, really.

Maybe he had finally snapped. That in itself was not a comforting thought, but maybe madness would be kinder to Lance then life was.

I did _not_ just have that thought!

Ash snapped back to reality again and stared at Lance, again.

Lance was still staring at nothing. Well, it would be difficult to tell what he was staring at in any case… being blind tends to do that to ya.

He sighed.

“Would you please quit that?” Lance asked. “If there really is something you want to talk about, go ahead.”

“What-what happened to her?”

“That,” Lance smirked, “Had absolutely nothing to do with us.”

“She died?”

“What can I say? In that time we didn’t _have_ the miracle drugs to cure cancer…”

“We don’t have them now either!”

“Fine, would you prefer me to say we didn’t have painkillers? I think that’s no lie, no matter if you trust me or not.”

“That-that’s not true!”
“Well, in our area it was. Why do you think we had to knock you out every time something really bad happened?”

So that explained the blackness…

Lance’s fingers were twitching across the fan, worried?

Too strange…

He couldn’t think anymore, maybe realm jumping wasn’t a good idea. It was only making him more confused, instead of less.

“I…”

END CHAPTER
Whee! Insanity! Poor Lance… *Sighs*… So what have a written? Oh dear…

Completed 9/4/04