Eh, the title means ‘Wasteland’ in Spanish…

Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me. Don’t steal my work!

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

Timeline: Post-Cerise, Pre-mask of ice/Johto Arc

Pairing: Championshipping (Lance x Red), het this time!

Warnings: Split personality, cross-dressing, form changes

Chapter 1

“Who do you think she is?”

“I wonder how she survived…”
“Perhaps she was lost near the Island?”

“Impossible…”

Would the voices go away? She was getting annoyed… blue eyes sleepily blinked open beneath a fringe of light blonde hair.

“Ah! You’re awake! What’s your name?”

The Nurse Joy was dressed cheerfully in pink and white, a welcoming smile beneath starched white, but she didn’t let her guard down. “My name?”

“Yes, your name. We couldn’t find any trainer I.D. on you, and your bathing suit was… well, quite wrecked.”

“My name… I’m Cat.” She said. Yes, that sounded familiar. “Catelyn Vongard.”

“Catelyn Vongard, is it? I’ll go check to see if you are registered in the trainer database… by the way, do you have any pokemon? There weren’t any with you when the fishing boat fished you out of the water.”

Pokemon?

Everything was fuzzy, and she couldn’t remember… but she caught a glimpse of red…

“I…I think I had a Charmander…”

“Charmander…”

A few minutes later, the Nurse came back with a serious expression on her face. “Catelyn… you are registered, with Charmander as your starter pokemon, but the government lost track of you four years ago. What happened?”

“I…I can’t remember!”

“Amnesia, is it? I’ll have Chansey take a look at you…”

She smiled at the nice cute pokemon and didn’t flinch as it poked and prodded and attempted to heal her…

But after an hour of effort, Chansey shook her head.

Nurse Joy, it’s not… it’s not that she’s forgotten anything. A psychic pokemon could probably do a better job, but from what I see, everything after her battle at the Celadon City gym is a complete blank, like it never existed!

“That can’t be!”

Perhaps we could ask Officer Jenny if we could borrow her Abra?

“That might work…”

She had some soup and then they told her to go back to sleep, so she did, obediently.

“Besides hypothermia, she’s got amnesia as well?”

“Yes… we were wondering if we could borrow your Abra.”

“Of course!”

< You called? > The small psychic pokemon blinked sleepily as he opened his eyes.

“Yes, Abra. Could you check this girl’s memories? She claims not to remember anything, but we’re afraid she’s faking.”

< Yes, I can do that… >

Blue energy hummed around the sleeping patient and the psychic for long moments. Outwardly, everything remained the same, but inwardly…

Abra found himself walking down a long corridor, with doors of varied hue on either side. This was normal, most people had their memories in some sort of order, and Catelyn was no exception. The doors were all dated, almost all of a grayish shade that indicated no special emotion, with a few blue – depression, red – anger, and pink – happiness scattered between them. Normal enough…

However, as he opened the last door, a pink color, he saw Catelyn and her Charmander sharing an ice cream cone outside of Celadon gym, a new Rainbow Badge glittering on her vest.

Four years – simply wiped out, as if they had never existed! Beyond was one last door, tinged gray, showing the events of the previous day when she had woken up, with nothing before it.

Odd.

The long stretch of door-less hallway was painted black… black for death? She couldn’t have died and been reincarnated or whatnot. That was speculation and folly. There was no such thing as rebirth.

But it was the wrong color for amnesia. Amnesia – the doors would still be there, hidden under a sickly yellow-green film…

So… something was very wrong.

Black was just emptiness… blank and foreboding.

Something had to have happened, but what?

He began going back through the doors, frowning. There was one incident where she had gotten lost in Seafoam islands, with a six-hour block missing from her memory. Perhaps she had been lost, or frozen, or fallen unconscious… There were other gaps too, usually small, two or three hours, then at night, several with eight or seven, but they could be explained by naps and sleeping. After all, usually dreams and memories were not kept in the same area of the mind.

How confusing…

No, there really was nothing to indicate a problem. So why didn’t she remember anything?

He exited and shook his head.

She was dreaming.

In her dream, there was a nice girl with long red hair and golden eyes.

“Hello.” Catelyn said shyly.

The other girl looked at her oddly. “So you really have forgotten.”

“Do I know you?”

“In a sense. I am you. I’m your dark side, your shadow, your reflection…” She laughed. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Lance.”

“Lance… where are we?”
“We’re dreaming, of course. This is the Dream Realm, the only place we can both exist. I’ve had my four years of fun, now it’s your turn to live again.”

“So that’s why I can’t remember anything!”

“No, that’s not it… I don’t know why Father would have sealed your memories, but it may be safer that way.”

“I see… I’m so confused, Lance.”

“Don’t worry about me. Finish your journey, enjoy your life… you deserve some happiness.”

“?”

“You should wake up now. The Abra is done scanning. Of course it didn’t even notice Father’s work… well, as I said, have fun. If you’re in trouble, I’ll save you.”

She couldn’t remember what she had dreamed when she woke up, but she felt cheerful, even without her memory, and then Nurse Joy came and said that her Charmander was fine and brought Charmander back and they were reunited so it didn’t really matter what she had dreamed.

Time to finish her journey then!

End Chapter

Completed 6/27/05

Catelyn is the ice guardian, Lance’s first form. She’s the most genki of all three forms… and she also has the childish mindset.