Title: Sensation
Author: Shadow/Phantomness
Pairing: Championshipping (Lance x Red)
Fandom: Pokémon
Theme: #43, Sensation
Rating: PG-13
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. Game-verse

Warnings: AU, shonen-ai, shota

Summary: Red doesn't want to go to war.

Red flopped onto the bed wearily. It had been a long day, but he was quite sure that this hard work and diligence would pay off. True, carrying a large poster board sign that demanded President Goodman's resignation was hardly what one would expect of the Pokemon League Champion, but…

Enough was enough! All the Elite and Gym leaders were overworked, got paid a mere pittance, and now Goodman was making threatening noises with Johto, arguing about land use and expansion and Mew knew what else.

War was brewing on the horizon, and Red had just about had enough.

A knock came at his door, and he wearily got up, hoping it wasn't a reporter. Lance stood there with an irked expression on his face and a tray piled with sandwiches in his hands.

"Oh! Come in." Red brightened up almost instantly at the sight of his visitor. They sat at the little table while Lance poured hot tea for both of them and Red ran to get clean plates.

Red sighed as he sipped the chrysanthemum tea slowly. He helped himself to one of the turkey-and-cheese sandwiches, and didn't speak until he was reaching for a peanut butter and blackberry jelly one. "Lance? What do you think is going to happen?"

"What do you mean?" The Dragon Master asked.

Red sighed. "You know! About the war between Kanto and Johto."

"I desire no part in it, certainly." Lance shrugged. "And I would not condemn my dragons to such a cruel fate."

Red shivered, imagining having to use pokémon as tools of war… he turned pale and set down his tea hastily.

Lance noticed this and got up, unfastening the golden cords at his throat at the same time. He carefully draped his cloak over Red's shoulders, before Red grabbed him in a tight hug and refused to let go.

"I don't want it to happen."

"There is nothing we can do."

Red sniffled as Lance rubbed his back soothingly, trying to ignore his hormones. Finally, the Champion tiredly fell asleep in the Dragon Master's lap.

Lance put him to bed, pulled the coverlet up to his neck, and kissed him on the forehead before he left the room.

"So what are we going to do?" Lorelei asked.

Bruno thumped a meaty fist on the table. "He will expect us to fight. It is inhumane to subject pokémon to such conditions!"

Lance glanced at Agatha, but she shook her head. Though she was the eldest, she deferred to him, for he was their Leader.

Lance sighed. "Well, our Champion has decided to protest publicly, but I doubt it will be very effective."

"They are greedy, and it is the Council and the President who decide, not the Elite Four…"

Golden eyes inspected each of them in turn, before Lance half-smiled. "There are ways, of course, just not very pure ones."

Agatha cackled. "We know, Lance."

Bruno actually paled at this, as the Dragon Master flicked his hidden blades into his hands, smiling.

"How many can you take care of then?"

"Oh, quite a few." Lorelei said cheerfully, as she released Jynx. "All of them, if you'd like."

"Too obvious." Lance smirked. "The ice takes quite a while to melt, and you might get caught."

The Ice Master nodded with a frown.

"Agatha…"

"I can do it easily," The Ghost Master agreed. "It is fortunate so many of them are old men."

"I cannot believe you are contemplating this!" Bruno stormed out, and the trio left watched him go.

"He is much like Red. Too innocent." Lorelei said scathingly. Lance chuckled.

"Of course. That's why our Champion need not know of these plans."

"Which ones will you take?"

Lance smirked. "Goodman for starters, if you don't mind?"

Agatha shook her head, and the three of them vanished.

Two weeks later, most of the Indigo Governing Council had died from a strange plague. It seemed to be a new, virulent strain of pneumonia, fatal, and killed in a matter of days. No one noticed that others were soulless wrecks or found with their throats slit in the remote parts of the country. There was too much panic about a possible epidemic.

Lorelei had done her work well.

Disaster averted, spirits around the Plateau became high once more, though, Bruno reflected, as he watched Lance and Red sitting on the front porch eating ice cream, only one of them was truly innocent.

He sighed.

Should he tell Red what the Elite Four had done? He was Champion, and he had the right to know, but…

Somehow he couldn't bring himself to say the pejorative words, not when Red looked so happy.

"Is it bad of me not to feel guilty?" Red asked.

Lance paused, ice cream halfway to his mouth. "What do you mean?"

Red took another lick of his double chocolate cone before replying. "Now that the entire Governing Council is almost gone thanks to the new disease, we won't have to go to war, right?"

Lance nodded, refraining from adding that President Goodman was quite dead, and the corpse devoured to hide evidence.

"So who's in charge now?"

"I believe we are – or more correctly, you are."

"Me?" Red squeaked in surprise. "But I'm not sure I know what to do!"

"We'll help you." Lance reassured him, "And you'll do a much better job than Goodman ever did."

"Really?" Red blushed.

"Really." Lance said, and kissed him. He felt the boy's lips part in surprise, but he didn't care, and after a moment, Red began to respond eagerly.

The sensations running through his body surprised him. He felt a twinge of guilt, but also relief, and as he held Red close, he vowed that he would not let any damning information taint Red's innocence.

Red's eyes were wide as he cuddled against Lance, feeling hardness between his legs. "L-Lance…"

"I know." The Dragon Master said, and slipped a hand between Red's thighs. "I'll make it better. I promise."

And Red believed him.

End Fic

Completed 12/12/06

Sensation is the conversion of energy from the environment into a pattern of response by the nervous system (Introductory Psychology, 7th Edition by James Kalat)