"You're listening to a psychic?" Clair asks disbelievingly when Lance calls her later that night. "Of all the times in your life you choose to listen to a psychic now?"
"You don't believe the evidence?"
"Evidence? All I see is that those Gym Leaders probably haven't been training enough." Clair gives a condescending snort. "They're not like us dragon users, after all. We know what discipline is."
"Watch your words," Lance cautions his cousin. "I know these people. They train hard."
"I'm sure." There is no mistaking Clair's tone for anything other than sarcasm.
There is a knock on the door, and Lance looks up. "Come in," he says. Clair hangs up, as always, and Lance shakes his head.
Will strolls in, followed by Karen. "Bruno says that we have a challenger headed to the Elite Four?" the Psychic specialty Elite Four member drawls, levitating his ever present Poke Ball.
"It may be too soon to tell, but possibly." Lance steeples his fingers together. "Why are you asking me?"
Karen gives him a look. "Well, you are the Champion. You run half this entire League. You know things we don't." She crosses her arms. "What does he specialize in?"
"What does it matter?" Will demands. "You specialize in Dark Pokemon. If that's not enough to take out any amateur trainer, I don't know what is."
"You've heard the rumors, Will. He isn't any amateur trainer." Karen scowls. "I haven't lost a match in over a year. I don't intend to start."
Lance waves her concerns away. "He only has four badges," he reassures the pair of Elite Four members. "The hard part has only just begun for this kid."
...
But as the week goes on, the 'kid' doesn't seem to find the journey hard at all. Chuck calls a day later, informing Lance that he's got a "real firecracker" on his hands, and goes on in his boisterous, loud way to tell Lance that Gold is essentially one of the best he's ever seen because of his tenacity.
Jasmine calls two days after that, shyly telling Lance that Gold has come to her Gym, and he has all the qualities that a Pokemon trainer should have. Lance is somewhat touched by her story of how she sent Gold to Cianwood to get her sick Pokemon medicine, but when Jasmine begins to get off track with details of how sick her Ampharos was, he bluntly asks her if she won the challenge or not.
Startled, Jasmine replies: "Why, of course not. He was far too strong for me."
Lance is surprised; he expected Gold to fall here because as far as he knows, nobody has really been able to figure out the Steel-type yet.
What's even more surprising is that apparently, Gold only used one Pokemon to take out Jasmine's team. He's not quite sure how Gold managed to use a Golem to take out Steelix, but he's definitely intrigued at this point.
After all this, Lance reflects, if the kid didn't end up beating him, he would be surprised.
...
He is in the middle of a chess game with Pryce one day when his phone rings. Lance glances at Pryce, who is intently surveying the board; with a tint of surprise, Lance answers his phone. "Lance."
The voice that comes across the line is unfamiliar, but Lance chalks it up to not getting any calls other than from his Gym Leaders. "Lance? You need to help us!"
Lance frowns. "Who is this?" he asks cautiously.
"Nurse Joy." The voice goes on, somewhat unsteadily. "There's something weird going on in Mahogany Town, and our Gym Leader isn't around to take care of it!"
Lance looks at Pryce, who is still rubbing his chin, lost in deep thought. "Weird?"
"The Gyarados in the Lake of Rage are going berserk. Trainers have been coming in with terribly damaged Pokemon. Please come and help us!" Nurse Joy sounds terrified.
"I'll be there soon." Lance hangs up the phone, reaching for his cape as he does so. Pryce looks up from the board, in the middle of reaching for Lance's knight. "Where are you going?" he asks in surprise.
"Nurse Joy just called from the Pokemon Center in Mahogany Town. Something's wrong with the Gyarados in the Lake of Rage." Lance fastens his cape. "I'll be back soon."
"I'll go." And Pryce begins to try and rise to his feet.
"No," Lance says firmly.
"It's my city."
"You also look like you're about to snap like a brittle twig," Lance counters, knowing that he sounds about as snappish as Clair does. "You may be a great Gym Leader, Pryce, but you're old. No offense," he adds belatedly.
Pryce scowls at him, but sits back down. "What can I do?" he asks.
"Take my phone and call Karen, Bruno, Will, and Koga. Bruno is here somewhere, training as always. But I don't know where the other three are- Karen and Will may be together in Goldenrod, but I do not know."
"And Koga?" Pryce begins dialing numbers.
Lance snorts as he puts his hand on his doorknob. "Probably hiding in a corner somewhere pretending to be a ninja."
...
"Down," Lance instructs, and his Dragonite swoops down over the Lake of Rage. Lance hops off the back of his huge, hulking Pokemon and stalks towards the sign, where a huge crowd has gathered. "What's going on?" he asks one of the spectators, a young boy no older than twelve.
"It's amazing! This kid went out into the middle of the lake with nothing but a Seaking, and he's beating that Gyarados!" The kid turns around and gets a good glance of who he is talking to. "Holy Mew's tail, you're Lance the dragon trainer!"
"Yeah, yeah," Lance says brusquely. "This kid went out with a Seaking and is winning, you say?"
"It's phenomenal-" the boy begins to say, but just as he says it a roar goes up from the crowd. Both Lance and the boy turn just in time to see the Gyarados disappear in a flash of red light, shrinking into a form small enough to be contained in a Poke Ball. Lance raises his eyebrow. "He caught it," he says to nobody in particular.
The crowd, having seen the end of the show, begins to dissipate on the shore. Lance thoughtfully stares at the sign, ignoring the boy who's run off to his friends to whisper that Lance the dragon trainer is here. Instead, Lance mulls over his own thoughts.
He has heard the rumors, of course- it is hard to be the most powerful trainer in the region and not hear the rumors that Team Rocket, the most evil organization in history is reforming under new leadership. He's investigated himself, and he's had Morty assist him at times, but neither of them have been able to come up with evidence of Team Rocket's return.
As the boy from the center of the lake begins to make his way back to shore, Lance's mind wanders to the events of previous months. He's made several trips down to Goldenrod's Radio Tower to speak to Mary, as strange things have been happening. Parts have gone missing, eerie phone calls have been made, handwritten threats have been delivered. Lance suspects that Team Rocket is behind it, but nobody has come forward to claim responsibility, and as of late, the threats have stopped. Rumors persist, though, that a radio broadcast has been broadcasting from Mahogany... but Pryce had also found no evidence when he checked.
But now this… Lance scowls unconsciously. He hates it when Pokemon are abused, especially so when said Pokemon are dragon types. His mind thinks quickly, going over what Nurse Joy had said to him over the phone. Pokemon were being damaged, terribly damaged… even wild Gyarados shouldn't be so vicious towards other Pokemon. Gyarados were only vicious when they were forced to evolve from their usually docile Magikarp, and Lance's mind sticks on that fact. "The lake is full of Gyarados and nothing else," he realizes. "So the Magikarp are being forced to evolve…"
Lance is so immersed in his thoughts that he fails to see the soaking wet boy approaching him. It is only when the boy taps him on the shoulder that Lance turns around. He recognizes him instantly from the descriptions that the Gym Leaders have provided him- he is short, wears goggles on his head, and has piercing golden eyes under bangs of jet black hair. "Ah, did you come here for the rumors?" Lance asks, a smile tugging on his lips, "You're Gold?"
The boy nods silently.
Lance nods back. "I'm Lance, a trainer like you." He doesn't know why he bothers to even add the last part, but he feels the need to put Gold on the same level that he is on. "I heard some rumors, so I came to investigate," he goes on while Gold stands there quietly.
Something about Gold is intriguing, so Lance goes on talking. "I saw the way you battled earlier, Gold. I can tell you're a trainer with considerable skill." And I've been hearing nothing but good things about you, he adds in his mind. Then an idea strikes him, and so he blurts it out spontaneously. "If you don't mind, could you help me investigate?"
It takes a moment, but then Gold nods.
Lance grins. "Excellent." He explains his theory, and sees Gold's face change from curiosity to pure indignation. He also explains that a radio broadcast from Mahogany is the cause of the evolution, and sees Gold's hand drift towards the first Pokeball on his belt.
"I'll be waiting," Lance offers, and releases Abra before teleporting away. The last thing he sees is Gold turn towards the gate and walk off.
...
Abra puts him in the middle of the town, almost on top of an elderly woman who hobbles away while glaring viciously at Lance. The Champion grimaces. "You need to work on your landing skills," he grumbles to Abra, who shrugs apologetically before Lance returns it to its Pokeball, ready to be handed back to Will when he asks for it back.
Lance glances around. The area is lonely, dark, deserted, cold. How accurate, considering the specialty of the Gym Leader. He glances around, taking in the many dark windows-
What was that? Lance frowns when he sees a figure disappear below the windowsill in what looks like the Pokemon Mart. The ducking seems furtive, as though they don't want to be caught- how suspicious. Lance reaches for his first Pokeball, and feels Dragonite tense in it, ready to be sent out.
He approaches the Mart, and knocks on the wooden door. A young man opens it and beckons him inside: "Come in, come in! We're selling lots of things tonight, come and see what we have!"
Whoever that is, they're certainly talking too fast, Lance thinks, eyeing the man suspiciously as he steps over the threshold. One gaze rakes the entire area, and he feels as though the whole place reeks of suspicious activity. "Know anything about Team Rocket?" he asks, turning around to look at both the young man and the man behind the counter.
The look on their faces tells Lance everything he needed to know. He sees the man reach for something under the table, and Dragonite is there all of a sudden, wrenching the Pokeball out of the man's hand. "Ah, ah, wrong move," Lance tuts. Dragonite looms threateningly over the counter, and the man cowers.
"And what is this?" Lance reaches over to the shelf, where he can see several boxes of Slowpoketails sticking out behind a hastily placed flowerpot. "Slowpoketails? How fascinating. Now do you want to tell me where Team Rocket is?"
"Never!" the young man bursts out, and rushes at Lance with his fists. Lance raises an eyebrow, and all of a sudden, the young man is flying backwards from Dragonite's Hyper Beam, colliding into the wall.
The door opens, and Gold walks in, a Typhlosion tailing behind him. "What took you?" Lance demands, not taking his eyes of either man. "Just as I thought, that strange radio broadcast is coming from here." Because, he figures, where else could it be coming from?
Both men stand where they are, quivering, but out of fear or out of indignation, Lance can't tell. He stalks over to where several boxes have been hastily dragged, and nudges them away with his foot, revealing a secret trapdoor. "The stairs are right here." Behind him, Lance can hear someone stifle a gasp, and he rolls his eyes. Can't even hide a trapdoor properly.
"Gold," he says, turning to the boy behind him, "we should split up to check this place. I'll go first." Gold nods mutely, his Cyndaquil crackling beside him, and Lance turns to descend the stairs. "And don't you dare go anywhere," he tosses over his shoulder to the two petrified men standing in the shop. Dragonite rumbles menacingly, folding its arms as it thumps down in the corner and stares at them.
...
The next few hours pass by in a blur, but Lance hardly sees any challenge in the Team Rocket grunts who attack him with weak Rattatas and Zubats. Once in a while, he'll come across an Arbok or a Weezing- and he appreciates the effort, but one blow from Dragonair's Hyper Beam and they flee from him, shouting something about passwords and returns and how he'll never make it out.
Lance is sort of amused, really. He finds this simply too easy, but at the same time it's exhilarating to be out of the League and battling again. The thoughts of retirement surfaces in his mind again, but he pushes it away. "Think I should retire?" he asks the Gyarados slithering next to him.
Gyarados roared, and Lance heard someone squeak "eeeeeeeeep" before the pattering of feet could be heard. Lance grinned. "I take that as a no, then."
...
"Two passwords," the Rocket Grunt squeaks as Lance grabs him by the collar. The kid (because honestly he can't be any older than fifteen) cringes and tries to flinch away from Lance's hard black eyes. "You need two passwords!"
"Hey you!"
Lance sighs. "Another one?" He lets go of the Team Rocket member and the boy scurries away, recalling his Raticate and Zubat as he flees the scene. Lance turns around to find a red-haired teenage boy standing at the door, scowl etched on his face. This is a stubborn one, Lance reckons as he steps across the marble floor. "You're clearly not a Team Rocket member," he drawls.
The teenager crosses his arms, scowl growing deeper. "How do you know I'm not?"
Lance raises an eyebrow. "You're not wearing the uniform." He gestures at the kid "And your stance. It's not aggressive enough. You just seem like an angry teenager, untrained really."
"Untrained?" The redhead whips out a Pokeball. "I'll show you who's untrained! I challenge you to a battle!"
"Oh, you don't want to do that," Lance sighs, even as the redhead lets out a Feraligatr. "You don't even want to tell me your name?"
"It's Silver. Now get on with it."
Lance folds his arms. "Do you know who I am?"
"Lance, the dragon trainer, Champion of the Johto League. I know who you are, and I can take you." Silver jerks his head at the growling Feraligatr, and Lance is stricken by how different Silver and his Pokemon are from Gold and his Typhlosion. Where Gold almost seems to favor Typhlosion as a companion and friend, Silver seems detached from Feraligatr, as though he has spent no personal time with the Water type Pokemon.
"Get on with it," Silver says sharply, jerking Lance out of his thoughts.
Lance shakes his head. "You really want to do this…" He reaches for Dragonair's Pokeball. "You asked for it, kiddo."
...
The fight is over in five minutes, and Lance doesn't even have to switch out his Pokemon. None of Silver's Pokemon lands a single hit on Dragonair, and they are easily taken out by Dragonair's Hyper Beam. Lance allows his Pokemon to drift over to where he is, and they stand there quietly watching Silver as the boy seems to implode.
"You know," Lance says after a while as Silver bends over his fallen Sneasel and dabs Revive on it, "It might help if you love your Pokemon more."
Silver snorts, not looking at Lance. "Who needs love? I'll get stronger Pokemon. Then I'll defeat you, you'll see!"
"You're not understanding how this works," Lance points out as gently as he can. "You don't love or trust your Pokemon enough. Without those bonds, you can never be a great trainer."
Sneasel is gone in a blinding flash of light, and Silver gets up. "I've heard enough," he spits angrily before stalking off. "Great trainer, indeed! You're another bleeding heart!"
Lance watches him run up the stairs, feeling as though his heart is sinking with every step Silver takes. "Poor boy," he says to his Dragonair. "He really doesn't understand, does he?" Dragonair makes a sound that sounded like an agreement.
Just then, the ground shakes with what sounded like an explosion. Lance suddenly remembers that he is here with Gold, and Mew's tail, what happens if that boy is all alone being overwhelmed by several Team Rocket grunts? Evil villains didn't exactly fight fair. "Come on," he says to Dragonair, running towards the same stairs that Silver had just disappeared up. "Let's go squash some Team Rocket organizations."