Long or short series, which knows?

Disclaimer: Again, I don’t own pokemon. Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me.

Remember, Red = Ash and it’s Red from Pokemon Special so he’s more mature! And no, Ash and Lance are not genetically related. Thank you. *bows*

Chapter 9

“Wake up, aniki.”

Lance’s golden eyes snapped open. “She’s gone already? What happened?”

Ash gave a sheepish grin. “I drove her off.”

“You what? You haven’t even brought your fire skills up to full potential yet. How…?”

“I have no idea, aniki….” Ash frowned. “I just wanted her to go away, so, er…. I tried to bite her….”

“Bite is a dark type attack.” Lance commented.

“Yes….”

A pause. “Um… aniki? Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course you may. Whether I choose to answer truthfully is up for debate however.” Ash sweatdropped.

“Just… what mission were you on that time? You know, when… er… well, I hugged you.”

Lance sighed. “I suppose you have a right to know. It was a simple mission really, go out and capture this rare Tentacruel. It was a different color than normal. Everything was going fine, we’d taken a speedboat out to find it and we never really expected anything bad to happen…”

“Go on, aniki.” Ash urged, sensing that something was coming up.

“But then… we ran into this other boat, from a clothing company… and they had… Seel in their boat… baby Seels…” Lance’s fingers twitched nervously. “And… they were… they were…” He shuddered, but went on. “They were *skinning* the pokemon for their fur!”

“No!” Ash gasped.

“Yes! They killed them! All those baby Seel…” He clamped his hands over his ears. “I can… I can still hear them crying for help…. And I should have done something to stop them, but…I really, tried but they ran off as soon as they saw our boat and I couldn’t do anything, with my power! I couldn’t!”

What was he supposed to do?

Ash sighed as he watched his brother break down. What could he do? The past was the past, and nothing would change that. “Aniki…. It’s okay….”

Lance shook his head. “I could have saved them!”

“You can’t save the world, Lance, no matter how much you’d like to.” As harsh and strangely insightful as the comment was, it was also true.

Lance met chocolate orbs as he stared up into Ash’s face. “I suppose not…. But I still feel so damned helpless whenever I think of it.”

“Aniki… I don’t know what else to say, but please, don’t kill yourself over this. You tried to save them, right?”

He nodded mutely. Tried. Called the oceans, tried to bend them to his will and drown those bastards, tried, but he obviously hadn’t trained enough, because no matter the wind and water he called, the stupid boat wouldn’t tip!

But… it felt better, oddly, to admit that he wasn’t all-powerful. He sighed as he pulled Ash into his lap.

Fine. I can’t protect the world. But I can protect you, Ash, and I *will*. I promise. Nothing will *ever* break that.

Ash smiled brightly as Lance’s eyes began to burn with fierce determination. Good. Now he could get over it.

“I’m tired.” Lance finally sighed. “All this boring, routine stuff… what’s the point of life?” Ash blinked in surprise.

“You’re bored with me?”

“Heavens, no! Don’t misinterpret my words as such. I’m just tired; I suppose… when does one become jaded to work? I killed when I was seven, and it’s been years since… it just feels so… dead.”

Lance was being strangely open today. Oh well, he didn’t mind…

The trainer closed his eyes. “So, why do you think the intruders were looking for you?”

“I honestly have no idea. It doesn’t really make any sense, does I?”

“NO, I can say it doesn’t. Well…. technically, you have the Viridian Power, and that might be valuable….”

“But no one knows!”

“Point taken. Well, it cannot be Team Rocket searching for you, as that would be quite pointless…”

Ash nodded, frowning. “Does Team Rocket have any rivals?”

“Well…. Team Aqua and Team Magma exist, but they fight over Houen and generally do not bother us here, plus, they use fire and water type pokemon…”

“Hmm…”

Both drew blanks after a few moments, so they put the incident out of their minds and went back to work – well, Ash went off to his hands-on medical classes and Lance went online to search for rare pokemon.

“Let’s see…” Lance’s breath caught as he stared at the pokemon. He relied mostly on his power, keeping only a Gyarados he had raised from a Magikarp, but… those two were beautiful…

Silvery blue scales sparkled and glimmered, even through the medium of electronic photos. He absolutely *had* to get those two…

Beautiful Dragonair…. So they were on sale at the Vermillion Surfing Contest tomorrow. Well then…. He’d enter, of course…

It would be an easy victory. What the other contestants didn’t know would never hurt them…. And then, he’d have a pair of dragons for his own…

That would be absolutely perfect.

“Ash.”

“Yes, aniki?” They were having dinner, and as Lance had decided not to cook tonight cup ramen was the norm. “Is something wrong?”

“I shall not be present tomorrow.”

“Another mission? All right.”

“Do not worry.” He smiled as he searched Ash’s eyes “I’ll be fine.” He could see a hint of crimson, hidden by the color-changing contacts….

Why were those even necessary? Ash was not going outside the base after all…

Who knew Giovanni’s reasoning?

“Hmm?” Oak opened his door, to find a collapsed Pikachu. “This is – this is Red’s Pikachu! What is it doing here?”

The pokemon looked fine health-wise although quite exhausted. Interesting….

Now what to do?

First, he’d have to tell Green and the others about this…any sign of Red was better than no sign at all!

But why only Pika? Where were Red and the rest of his pokemon?

End Chapter

Completed 5/4/05

Phantomness: My roommates are disturbing people

Lance: No wonder your fanfic has gotten scarier…