Yes, I abuse Lance horribly in my fics… I’m a horrible person…

Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*

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

Chapter 4

He was dreaming again. He and Joy had Lance hooked up to enough wires and tubes to fuel a whole army, or so it seemed.

“It’s a miracle she’s not dead.” Joy said. “Well, there’s nothing more we can do. All the feeds are hooked up, so…”

Ash nodded as he went home.

Now he felt bad that he hadn’t noticed earlier!

Well, they said she wouldn’t be walking so she’d be stuck in a wheelchair for he rest of her life… and that really did suck!

And then…. Well, perhaps the damage would heal, but most likely not…

“Lance…”

You know my name.

He nodded. “I finally figured it out. I’m sorry it took so long! I could have helped you before… before…”

He raped me, didn’t he?

Ash nodded.

Lance put down her notepad with an angry expression. With the mask gone, he could see her features somewhat better, and they were twisted in anger. If I had the power, I’d sacrifice my life to make him feel the hell he has put me through.

“Don’t say that Lance, it can’t be that bad!”

How would you know?

He didn’t. That scared him, although he knew not how. “But if you don’t wake up you really will die…”

What if I want to?

Ash froze.

It wasn’t his choice to make for her.

I want to die…

The red ink she insisted on writing in looked like blood….

“How is she, Nurse Joy?”

“Oh.” Nurse Joy frowned. “I… I took the liberty of doing a test, and it’s too late.”

“Too late?”

“She’s pregnant.”

Ash gasped. “But she’s barely alive! The pregnancy could kill her!”

“I know. So we’re both worried. We don’t know how this will turn out, Ash. Maybe… maybe she’ll be all right, but maybe not…”

“I’m worried about her.”

Joy smiled. “You’re such a good boy.”

Am I?

I’m pregnant?

There was a long chain of exclamation marks and question marks after the statement. Ash nodded.

Lance’s expression slid from anger into extreme anger. Ash backed up a few steps involuntarily.

“Yes, I’m afraid you are.”

That bastard! How did this happen? How did this…? Why did he have to do this to me? I hate being pretty! I wish – I wished I really were dead!

“But then the baby will die too.”

I care nothing for that child, it certainly wasn’t conceived in love, never mind what poetry Bruno spouts! And I will figure out a way to-!
“Lance, that’s murder!”

Then if he wants the stupid embryo so badly he can carry it!

The girl was fuming. She was so angry that she was glowing like a star about to go supernova…

Surely she couldn’t do anything here, right?

Ash was jerked out of dreamland a second later when Joy shook him.

“Ash? Ash! We’ve got an emergency…”

“What?”

He had fallen asleep in the room. This was the second time this had happened. Lance could just… put him to sleep and talk to him? How scary…

But now he had to get back to business.

“What’s wrong?’

“She stopped breathing!”

Stopped breathing? You couldn’t survive without oxygen for more than a few minutes! Ash immediately ran for the respirator and managed to get her hooked up, despite his shaking hands…

It was almost too late. Almost, but not quite…

He thought though, that he could see a tear….

They’d had to cut of the bedposts to free her – the chains were soldered almost into the wood, and the manacles were still tight around her wrists and ankles, although she had lost a lot of weight from what he remembered…

He could see her bones…

“Say, what happened to her pokemon?”

Joy looked flustered. “No idea, but I didn’t have time to search her room. Odd thinking of the Champion as her…”

“Well, everyone thought that Lance was male, not just us… should we keep it that way?”

“I’m not sure what the right thing to do is. We could keep her alive to deliver the child so it has a decent chance of survival, but considering the state she is already in…”

“That might not work?”

“She could die.”

“But she’s already on the edge now. Shouldn’t we at least save the baby?”

Save the baby?

“Why am I dreaming again?”

This is the only way I can talk to you. No! We’ll both die! Lance bared her teeth as Ash read the note.

“But it’s your child!”

WHAT PART OF ‘I WAS RAPED’ DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND!!!!

“Um… well… my mom was a single parent…”

Lance began to smile. Single parent? That I can do. Before Ash could protest, she had tossed him her notepad and quill pen.

He caught them reflexively, and so he was too late to react to what she did next.

The trainer gave a triumphant smile as she drew a line down her torso, and then crumpled. Her armor vanished, leaving her in – ah, they were a kind of lavender color, her clothing – which was rapidly turning red…

Ash was forcibly thrown out of the dream just in time to see Lance’s body glow and vanish….

“Oh no…”

End Chapter

Completed 8/11/05

While it is technically against my religion to abort children, if I were raped I’d probably do so. And Lance thinks like me, except without restraint.

Lance: I was pregnant?!

Phantomness: *hides*

Ash: Key word was…

Shoyko: Oh, the darkness, it kills me…