Hmm… how long will this series be? *Shrug*

Disclaimer: Don’t own pokemon, but I wish I did. Don’t steal my fic!

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

Well, this won’t be incest any longer…

Chapter 6

It was hard to learn the healing arts. He thought they would be easy, like pokemon battling, but he soon learned the value of Lance’s earlier words.

Every morning, he got up at eight, had breakfast, and got to work studying his texts. At lunch, he would receive a short break. The, he’d spend another two hours hitting the books before Lance took him to the hospital area of the Viridian base.

He spent an hour retching after his first visit, seeing how horrible some pokemon were treated…. And rage at those who had condemned their pokémon to this existence.

Some were blind, deaf, mute…. But the worse had to be the amputees and the ones on life support…. He still got occasional nightmares about those.

Now… he wished he hadn’t been so hasty. But it only spurred his determine to greater heights. He would learn to heal and he would find out some way to heal those pokemon! He promised!

After his hospital visits, he usually had a few hours of free time, and then dinner, and after that, Lance gave him shooting lessons. Red hated guns with a passion, so Lance taught him to use needles and darts with unerring accuracy. Now, he could hit a target thirty feet away with his eyes closed.

Still, stationary were easier than moving targets. He could hit a moving target within five feet with his eyes closed, just by luck, but…

Lance had coated his needles with a rare variant of Beedrill venom. Death by paralysis, ranging from two minutes to an hour, depending on toxicity level…

Quite painful… but he now knew it was necessary.

Necessary. That word seemed so vile at times. Was he here just because he was necessary for the organization? And what would happen when he was no longer needed?

He voiced his concerns several months into the training regimen. Lance had stared at him incredulously.

“Of course Father needs you! How could you doubt it?”

“But I can’t do anything!” He had shouted back. “I’d be better off dead!”

Lance had slapped him for that comment. “Don’t say that! How do you think I would feel, little brother?”

Well, that had cut through the fog in his mind. Lance had quit calling him that after training had started, correctly inferring that it annoyed the Pallet trainer to no end….

Gold slowly met crimson, bare inches apart. Red had finally broken the glaring contest, sighing.

No, he hadn’t really been thinking…. And if he died, surely his pokemon would miss him at least? That gave some comfort….

Meanwhile, outside, havoc was breaking loose.

Green had won the Indigo League Championships, becoming the ninth Pokémon League Master, but now…. Now he had no rival.

Blue was annoying him as well, that bubbly girl with her team of cute pokemon. Where had Red gone?

He had to know…

Professor Oak shook his head. “Red hasn’t called me in months. I thought he was off training… since his pokedex hasn’t malfunctioned or anything…”

“Well, he wouldn’t miss the League Championships for no reason at all.” Green pondered. * What’s gotten into him? *

Blue backed away as Green glared at her. “Hey! It’s not my fault! I mean, I haven’t seen him since Saffron City.” * I hope he’s all right… *

The two trainers exchanged nervous glances.

“So neither of us have seen him since Saffron…. This is bad…. But I’m sure he got out safely.”

“He did, Erika saw him flee…. And I know he should have gone to Cinnabar, to get that badge… I mean… oh, I’m so confused.”

“No….” Green shook his head. “The only badge left was earth…. So someone should have seen in viridian. Why don’t we go there and ask?

“Sounds good to me…”

The two of them climbed onto Jigglypuff and Pidgeot and took off for Viridian. It was a rather quick flight from Pallet.

Once there, they found out that Red hadn’t been seen since he went off to challenge the gym leader to a match….

This was bad…

Something must have come up then. But the question was, was he dead or just missing?

“I don’t think he’s dead. Red doesn’t die that easily.” Green put in. “Of course, against the last gym leader….”

Blue shook her head. “This is bad…”

They took to the air again, hoping for any sign… any clue…

Red carefully put in his brown contacts – they would hide the unnatural bloody shades of his eyes…

There were plenty of trainers with black hair out there, so it wasn’t that unusual. It was time for his second mission. He’d been studying with Lance for r six months, and time had passed so quickly that he had completely forgotten about the pokemon league championships. No matter. His new skills were worth far more than a title.

He could heal…

Under Lance’s careful tutelage, Red had been able to unlock his Viridian power – passed on from his father Giovanni.

It was quite different; he had to admit, but also kind of cool. Now he could heal with a touch and read pokemon’s minds. However, he didn’t abuse it, which was rare….

Lance also had the Viridian power, although his had been naturally granted. It had shocked Ash to find out that Lance wasn’t truly related to him in the blood sense. Apparently, Lance was a child of Blackthorn…

Giovanni had kidnapped him when he was five, and given him the necessary injections and, well, adopted him…

However, he wasn’t Giovanni’s heir. He was the heir’s protector.

He was created to protect Ashura. Psychic and dragon and water would live to hide fire and dark from the world.

It had worked wonderfully…

However, Lance truly thought of the other child as his younger brother, so Giovanni never chose to disabuse him of the notion.

After all, it was a convenient cover in case anyone bothered to inquire closely. Lance had the Viridian Power just like Ash did…

What better explanation than familial genetic heritage?

End Chapter

Completed 5/3/05

There, no more incest…