Thank you for all of the interest in this story! I can't say that I expected this to happen. As I was writing this chapter, I became starkly aware of how many times I capitalized words; as such, from here on, I won't be capitalizing the word pokémon to both make it a bit easier on the eyes and help me write more quickly. Due to chapter lengths and college classes, I can't guarantee swift updates, but I hope you're willing to stick with me through this story, as I do have quite a few plans for it still in store.
"Lance, there's someone here to see you."
The Dragon Master looked up blearily from the scattered sheets of paper on his desk, absentmindedly restacking the pile right in front of him. The attendant standing at his door seemed impassive as ever, ignoring both Lance's rather bedraggled appearance in her formality and the glaring set of dragons who kept an eye on anyone who intruded on their territory. Haxorus specifically growled under his breath, which Lance quieted with a quick tongue click.
Lance cleared his throat, dusted out the folds in his shirt, and ran a hand through his hair. He wondered briefly who was visiting him before remembering the one appointment he had arranged in the past few days.
"Right, let him in, thank you," he said. The attendant gave him a short bow before ducking out of the doorway. A couple of seconds later, the door swung open far more widely in a grand gesture. Lance just chuckled to himself and rolled his eyes, allowing himself to lean back and relax in his chair. He briefly wondered if he should have asked the attendant for a bottle of wine or something to share with his visitor.
"Lance of Blackthorn! Don't hide from me behind that desk of yours," the man who strode in said loudly. A clay-colored pokémon accompanied him, glancing about with flashing green eyes as it scanned the room for any danger for its trainer, locking onto the dragons present for a split second before dismissing them. Lance smiled before wearily standing up and walking around his desk as his guest requested.
"I'd never thought I would ever end up cashing that favor in with you, Scott, but desperate times, I'm afraid. Did you have a safe trip?"
The man absentmindedly scratched his head, adjusting the shades he wore while doing so. "I asked Beheeyem here to Teleport me as fast as she could, and I have never been disappointed by her skills. And desperate times? I thought the League was thriving, not just surviving," Scott said. Lance heard the question underneath his lighthearted humor and began to bristle at even the possibility that the League was more unstable than it appeared.
"Rest assured, we as the League don't need the Frontier as of right now." Lance crossed his arms in front of his chest as he leaned back against his desk. "This is a favor from me as a man to you as a man, not from Champion to Frontier Head."
"Frontier Head? I guess that's appropriate, seeing as I house and protect my Brains," Scott quipped. Beheeyem rumbled her support.
"I'm just going to cut to the chase, Scott. I saw that you gained ownership of a ward once. A girl—Anabel, was it?"
The atmosphere in the room immediately shifted. Scott dropped his cheerful persona and Lance was reminded of the man who had thoroughly trounced the Indigo League and gracefully bowed out of the Elite Challenge, choosing instead to try and restore the old thrill of battling in Kanto. Scott had been dangerous, appearing out of thin air with pokémon so fiercely loyal that he was nearly disqualified due to his Swampert's indignant rage. He had inspired an entire generation of trainers to become one with their pokémon, to breathe with them and run beside them even if they couldn't battle alongside them on the field. Scott had been legendary in his time. Now, almost no one made the true connection between Scott of Verdanturf, one-time Indigo Champion, and Scott of the Battle Frontier.
"It would be foolish of me to deny it, Lance, seeing as you seem to have torn through almost a year's worth of paperwork," Scott responded mildly, gesturing to Lance's desk. He peered over his shades at Lance. "Though, I must confess, I'm rather curious as to why you brought this up? I took Anabel in quite some time ago, when she was practically still a toddler."
Lance began to clean the fingernails of one hand with those of the other. There was a chip in his left index fingernail—perhaps he'd need a file for that. "It just so happens that I find myself now in the same position as you did then."
The silence in the room bloated until both men felt the pressure on their chests, but neither wanted to be the first to break. The only sound was the quiet hum of Beheeyem's form vibrating in the air.
"Fine, I'll bite. What the hell? Since when did you want kids?"
Lance smirked at Scott's words. "Believe me, it wasn't at all intentional," he said somewhat defensively.
Scott snorted. "I don't think it's possible to unintentionally adopt a child," he pointed out.
"A fair statement, but let me explain a bit. I found the boy with an entire posse of pokémon in a forest on the Tohjo range while intending to train my newest addition." Deino perked up from the pile of dragons in the corner and ambled over to find out why she was being talked about. Lance smiled at her slightly and patted her head to satisfy her craving for attention. "I have no idea how he got there or even if he is legally someone's son. However, I had to get him registered with the government's databases somehow, and the best way to do so was as my ward. He has full League protection under my name and is free to act as much or as little like any other child does now, and I find myself having to take care of him while also running this branch of the League. Surely if you've done it, you have some idea of what you're doing."
"Believe me, Lance, if you know what you're doing as a guardian to some kid, you'll become a millionaire by teaching parents how not to fuck up their kid." Scott sighed before sitting down on an invisible barrier. Lance couldn't help glancing over to Beheeyem, who looked back at him impassively even as her eyes glowed blue with the effort of holding Scott up. Scott himself seemed to be thinking hard about something—he took off his shades and mindlessly began to polish them with the hem of his bright blue shirt, not noticing when he lingered for seconds too long on one lens over the other.
"I'm guessing that it would be a bad idea for me to meet him," Scott finally said.
"I don't know how he'd react to a stranger," Lance responded as neutrally as he could.
Scott hummed. "Anabel was easily spooked for a good amount of time when I first gained guardianship over her. She's still a bit reserved, if I'm to be completely honest. Her nifty little gift doesn't exactly help either; she withdraws into her pokémon if at all possible, which isn't great for, y'know, teaching her human interaction."
Lance froze at that detail. "Is she good with pokémon?" he asked, trying to sound casual. From the look on Scott's face, he did a very bad job of it.
"She's excellent with them. She must have some mild empathetic ability or something. She's able to communicate and bond with pokémon so easily, it's as if she can read their minds. It's the reason why she ended up my ward, actually. Some goons tried to kidnap her to force her to use her powers for their own cause, but after leaving her an orphan they suddenly lost all interest in her. Strange, really."
"Would you mind bringing her next time? She might be more successful talking to Ash than any of us."
Scott furrowed his brow. "Again, she's much better with pokémon than with other humans," he reminded Lance.
"It's a good thing that Ash is more pokémon than human then," Lance commented.
Scott had left a little bit after he and Lance arranged a day to introduce Anabel to Ash (Lance had taken a mental second to laugh at the idea that he was setting Ash up for some kind of play-date, as though he were a completely normal child with playmates and poignantly potent innocence). After Scott's departure via Beheeyem, Lance had made sure all of his paperwork was taken care of and walked down the hallway to visit Ash again.
It had been a few days since he had last visited the room. The maids that left the motley crew their food had begun to mix in fresh fruits and berries at Lance's request and marveled at the pristine condition that plates were left in after food was delivered. They had taken this as a sign that the boy and his companions were beginning to relax and to trust in the League as benevolent and trustworthy.
Lance was fairly certain that it was a sign that Ash was a hungry boy and his companions hungry pokémon.
Lance knocked on the door. He felt a passing psychic presence in his head that faded almost immediately upon recognizing him, followed immediately by the door opening just a crack in front of him in invitation. Lance poked the door open slightly more and stuck his head in.
The room was slightly neater than it had been before. The Pokéballs still lay in the middle of the floor, and Lance found himself disappointed by this though he hadn't expected anything different. Ash himself was lying on his back, eyes closed, while Pikachu and Riolu had at some point climbed on top of him as though he were a bench and were chattering at Mewtwo from their perch. Lance didn't hear Mewtwo respond verbally, though perhaps with powers as strong as he did, he wouldn't need to communicate out loud. Kabuto was, confusingly enough, crawling across the ceiling, and Porygon was floating through the air aimlessly, apparently still not over the novelty of having an actual body.
"Hello there," Lance said somewhat awkwardly. Surprisingly, there was no immediate difference. Pikachu, Riolu, and Mewtwo looked over to him with neutral but open expressions. Porygon paused by Ash's head before expectantly looking to Lance. Kabuto continued to happily scuttle along the ceiling until he was right above Lance and then casually let go, forcing the Champion to catch him. Lance fumbled a little bit with Kabuto; the pokémon was nowhere near as nervous as some of the Sinnoh League's revitalized fossils and was also as heavy as a rock his size. He heard the room's other inhabitants huff in amusement at his predicament.
"What, no help?" Lance asked, readjusting his arms to cradle Kabuto slightly better. It occurred to him seconds later that he wasn't sure if Ash knew what teasing sounded like, but his fears proved to be unfounded when the boy simply gave him an impish look.
"Fossil isn't harmful," Ash said, almost reassuringly.
"Fossil?" Lance asked.
Ash just pointed at the happily flailing pokémon in Lance's arms. "Fossil! Project FOSSIL—a failure in complete DNA repair, but a success in recreating natural life. He was patched up with Cradily DNA, which left lasting side effects!"
Lance blinked at the words so obviously parroted to him. "Can you say that one more time, Ash?" he asked, feeling Kabuto (Fossil?) wave his leg-like appendages at him. Lance quickly took out his Pokédex to scan the pokémon in quickly. Ash shrugged before repeating his words almost verbatim, as though parroting them from a well-known script.
The machine's cool, mechanical voice booted up quickly. Lance impatiently waited for the basic information to read out ([[Kabuto, the Shellfish Pokémon. A pokémon that was recovered from a fossil. It used the eyes on its back while hiding on the seafloor—]]) and paid as close attention to the specific information as he could to see if it would help him glean a better understanding of Ash's words: [[This Kabuto is male and most likely of the Relaxed nature. Probable level- 12. Moves known- Scratch, Harden, Absorb, Leer, Confuse Ray, Giga Drain, Stealth Rock.]]
Lance froze at the last few moves listed. The first four had been observed in other Kabuto specimens of a similar power level, and while he wasn't all too familiar with the species, he had knowledge enough of them. The latter three moves listed were moves that required such special conditions to carefully breed into Kabuto; there were many breeders who dreamed of producing a pokémon with such a fine-tuned move set. Stealth Rock wasn't even a move that could be bred into Kabuto, at least according to the literature, something that this group of misfits seemed determined to destroy with their existence. The interference move was carefully taught to the Kabuto line by the most skilled trainers determined to unlock the pokémon's potential, and though Lance was starting to think that there was something unique about Ash, no six-year-old could possibly teach a novice pokémon such an advanced move.
It had been the same for Riolu, as well—moves that were not naturally in the pokémon and could only truly be implemented in the species through intense, careful training were already taught to her, as raw and untrained as she seemed.
"I'm sorry, Ash, do you know what sort of failure of DNA repair Kabuto was victim to?" Lance asked, carefully petting Kabuto's back.
Ash's blank look reminded him that he was speaking to a literal child.
"Right, never mind. Is his name Fossil, then?"
Ash looked confused at that question. "He is Project FOSSIL."
"Well, we call all pokémon that look like him 'Kabuto'. Many trainers also give their pokémon nicknames that don't match the names given to them all by scientists, so if you want, we can just start calling him Fossil from now on."
Ash's confusion didn't clear up. "He's Project FOSSIL, that's just what he is. They're all Projects," he said, pointing to Kabuto, then to Riolu, then to Pikachu, then to Porygon. Mewtwo floated impassively behind him.
"What about Mewtwo?" Lance asked gently.
"He's Mewtwo," Ash responded. "He is the final step of Project POKÉMON."
Lance felt like he should be taking notes in case there was some sort of investigation later. There was something sinister about the words that Ash stated in such a blasé manner, as though it were common knowledge that his companions were all the victims of someone's experimentation. As much as he wanted to leave the room and escape the wide, horribly innocent eyes of the boy and his pokémon family even if just briefly, he forced himself to ask one last question before changing the topic completely.
"Were you a Project, Ash?" Lance asked softly.
Ash scrunched up his face in thought before glancing over to Mewtwo for help. Mewtwo's eyes flickered over to Lance's and the mental presence settled into his mind again.
'Boy-child son-father child-of-father leader-of-others leads-to-battle prepares-for-battle trains-for-battle trainer-trainer-trainer' ran through Lance's head.
Lance let that sink in before shaking off the dark path his thoughts were starting to take. He crouched down and let Fossil-Kabuto scuttle onto the ground before walking further into the room and taking a seat in a chair.
"Funnily enough, that's not what I came here to talk to you about," he said. "I wanted to let you know that a friend of mine, Scott, has a little girl that stays with him who you might find easier to talk to than me. She can come to stay in the League for a few days next week. Would you like to meet her?"
Ash once again looked confused. "Little girl?" he repeated. "Like Ari but small?"
"Who's Ari?" Lance asked, alarmed by how deeply Ash was still lost in his past.
"She's really big and really mean," Ash said, throwing his arms behind him nonchalantly.
"Big? How so?" Lance prompted. He wasn't quite running out of patience yet, but the urge to stand up and pace around the room was beginning to haunt him.
"Big!" Ash gestured with his arms, stretching them as high as they could go over him and then allowing them to drift closer to his form as he lowered them. "She liked to stand over us and call me 'Little Boy' and make funny noises at us. Mewtwo didn't like her, and I didn't neither, but sometimes she tried to bring us Pecha berries and do a weird thing with her teeth." Ash demonstrated by putting on an attempt at a completely disingenuous toothy grin.
"The proper grammar is 'I didn't either,'" Lance corrected, though he wasn't thinking too hard about Ash's butchering of Universal but of this distinctive woman. "Could you tell me what she looked like?"
Ash thought for a second. "She had head fur like berries," he said after a little bit. "And her eyes were like sparks."
"What do you mean, head fur like berries?" Lance asked.
"Like berries! Like—" Ash proceeded to make a series of strange growls in his effort to elaborate.
"I'm sorry Ash, I don't understand that language," Lance said. Ash looked baffled by that concept. "We might have to work a little bit on your Universal so that you can speak it just as well as you can speak to pokémon." He considered asking Mewtwo to translate for a brief second, though he knew that no official would take a pokémon's word as evidence to start investigating a person with, no matter how intelligent.
"Oh, ok." Ash looked thoughtful for a second. "Who's the little girl, again?"
Lance blinked. He had almost completely forgotten about his main goal in being there yet again. "Right, the little girl. Her name is Anabel. She's maybe a little younger than you. Scott claims that she has a special ability to bond with pokémon very well; I think she'd make a nice friend for you, someone that isn't a pokémon."
"Friend," Ash said slowly, pronouncing the word carefully.
"Yes, a friend. I wanted to tell you so that Scott and I didn't just spring a new person onto you. Would you be okay with meeting Anabel?"
Ash immediately nodded, though without some of his normal enthusiasm.
"Are you sure? Is there something wrong?"
Ash squirmed on the spot, shaking his head violently. Lance glanced over to Pikachu and Riolu, both of which were staring at Ash with what looked like panic, and then to Mewtwo, who looked resigned to explaining Ash's behavior again.
'Human-bad-loom power-arrogance pokémon-small-good not-bad-not-evil' ran through Lance's head. It was a more convoluted stream of thoughts than what Mewtwo typically expressed, but it took only a few seconds longer than usual for Lance to parse them out.
"If she was a bad person, I wouldn't even think about letting her come near the League building itself. Scott is a very kind man who has earned the complete loyalty of his pokémon without using fear or dominance, like what you're used to. I trust his judgment when it comes to many things, including this child. However, if you're not comfortable with that idea yet, you don't have to meet her until you're ready."
Ash seemed slightly more open to the idea and glanced up towards Mewtwo. The pokémon didn't notice for a couple of seconds, but when he did, his eyes opened slightly with surprise and he looked about as though he was uncertain of how to respond.
For a brief second, Lance thought that Mewtwo just didn't want to exist to avoid the stress of having to decide for Ash.
The two looked at each other and Lance was suddenly aware that the room wasn't as silent as it seemed as they screamed at each other through their minds and their eyes. After a little while, Ash's placid expression broke, just for a split second, morphing into an animalistic snarl of outrage that was wiped away when Mewtwo responded in kind. Ash looked away and Mewtwo looked faintly triumphant. He reminded Lance of a child who just won the playground argument over which kind of cake was the best, or something equally inane.
Lance was struck by the strange way that Ash and Mewtwo interacted with each other. Maybe it was Ash's generally feral nature or Mewtwo's pointed and logical intelligence, but they acted on the whole as equals while even the most beloved of their companions seemed merely capable of complete loyalty and unconditional love, the way all pokémon acted.
Mewtwo glanced over to Lance. The Dragon Master wondered for a split second if his thoughts had been heard but knew that it didn't matter as Mewtwo looked at him with open complacence. Lance didn't know how he had won Mewtwo's trust so readily, but he hoped that he could prove worthy of such a gift.
Lance nodded. "Anabel will be here in a few days. I'll remind you the day before she's scheduled to arrive." With that he got up and began to head for the door. When he was almost there, he felt something run into his legs. Lance stopped abruptly and looked down to see Ash awkwardly wrapping his arms around Lance's waist. It was a strangely incorrect hug—Ash's hands slumped downward at the wrist and there was a space between Ash himself and Lance's body—but there was a tenderness to the action. Mewtwo seemed surprised by it as well. Lance just turned to hesitantly pat Ash's head and the boy looked up at him with a quirked closed-mouth smile that would have fit Pikachu.
"Thank you, sir," he said carefully.
"No need for the formalities, Ash. Feel free to just call me Lance. You'd be the only one in this building that does," Lance quipped. The joke flew over Ash's head, if his vacant blinking was any indication, but the smile remained at Lance's friendly tone. Ash detached himself from Lance's legs and wandered back over to his friends, allowing Lance to quietly slip away from the room.
Lance's first impression of Anabel was that she was a slip of a girl, small and timid and wide-eyed as she stared openly at everything Lance's office had to offer (surprisingly little, as Lance had convinced most of his team to stay in their Pokéballs for the day). She hugged a particularly fluffy Eevee to her chest. The little creature seemed disgruntled but allowed her to hold him close. Scott had a hand protectively on her shoulder, which seemed to be helping her calm down a little bit.
"She's a little shy," Scott said, not bothering to lower his voice. Anabel looked slightly mutinous at that, though she didn't speak up against him.
Lance hummed in response. Deino wandered up to Anabel, and Lance wondered for a brief moment if letting the dragon roam free with no warning was a good idea. Her kind was known for its generally vicious nature, and though Deino had been bred to be slightly more docile than the wild members of her species it was important to encourage her to maintain her friendliness, especially to strangers. That being said, a dragon with the reputation of evolving into what could be a mindless beast was never a creature that anyone wanted to see wandering with minimal supervision.
Anabel seemed startled when Deino walked up to her and began to sniff at her hand. Eevee started to growl, his tail flicking irritably, squirming more insistently to try and dart away from the dragon instinctively. Anabel loosened her grip slightly to let him tumble out of her arms, and Deino took that as an opportunity to lay her head on the little girl's arm. Anabel glanced from the dragon to Lance to Scott before looking back to Deino and carefully laying a hand on her head. She smiled at Deino's croon of happiness as she started to pet more confidently.
"Deino's much friendlier than she looks," Lance said, trying to keep his voice down to make it less intimidating for Anabel. Anabel just nodded, now transfixed on the smooth feeling of Deino's head scales.
"Well, no time like the now. Shall we go meet your little man?" Scott asked.
"He's not my 'little man,' or anyone's anything at all, Scott," Lance said automatically, getting up from his chair. Upon seeing Lance stand up and move to walk down the hall, Deino chirped and nudged her Pokéball at his belt, returning herself to stasis.
As was customary, Lance quietly knocked on the door and allowed Mewtwo to poke around in his head. A split second later, he realized that he forgot to warn Scott and Anabel that this would happen and quickly turned to calm their fears. Scott seemed baffled but intrigued, and Anabel didn't seem as freaked out as he would have anticipated.
"You're much calmer than I expected you'd be," Lance said.
Scott shrugged. "Psychic pokémon are known for their cautiousness and I'm more than accustomed to being scanned by Spenser's Claydol every time I step foot into the Battle Palace. Besides, Brandon showed up with a set of Regi Golems the other day, and after that, I can't admit to being surprised by anything."
Lance blinked. "How on earth did Brandon manage to get an entire trio of Golems to himself? I heard they were scarce, especially still functional ones." Regirock, Regice, and Registeel were strange pokémon, powerful enough to be classified as Legendaries but completely manmade, relics of a past in which pokémon and people were far more closely intertwined. Some said that Arceus itself came down and carved the Golems to protect the land now thought of as Hoenn, while more pragmatic archaeologists fervently attested that they were some sort of ancient technology given sentience. The only thing that the two sides truly agreed on was that no more would ever be made; the secret to their longevity and their power lay in the inner workings of the Golems, and to dismantle even one to unlock those secrets was considered sacrilegious and abusive. It was incredibly hard to find any left if you were a simple layperson, and though Brandon had connections as a researcher in his own right, discovering an individual of all of the Regi Golems in one place was a finding of its own.
Scott just chuckled slightly. "I've long since accepted that Brandon functions on his own agenda and that to question it is to embark on a weeks-long debate with the man. Anabel likes him well enough so I try and stay on his good side."
At the mention of her name, Anabel glanced up at Lance and seemed to withdraw into herself a little bit more. "Mr. Brandon is very smart," she said quietly. Her voice was a whisper, though Lance could still hear a throatiness to her tone that belied a forced maturity. "He talks to me like a grown-up, and Solrock likes to help me learn how to talk to Eevee." Eevee's ears twitched at the sound of Anabel's voice and he gave a squeaky yip in acknowledgment.
Lance attempted a kind smile at her. It seemed to work, as she shyly smiled back before dropping eye contact. He carefully pushed the door open a crack. "Ash? Anabel is here."
Ash was sitting on the stripped bed, with Fossil cradled in his lap and Porygon darting around his head. The Pokédex that Lance had given him lay somewhat haphazardly on the mattress beside him, and Pikachu seemed to be having a bit of fun batting at the buttons and seeing what they did. Riolu was watching Pikachu's actions and seemed to be pointing out whenever he missed a change. Scott poked Lance's shoulder to draw his attention and nodded towards Mewtwo. Lance stalled the question in his eyes with a shake of his head, promising silently to explain later.
Anabel walked in first, with Eevee winding around her feet in agitation. Judging by his stiff posture, Lance could tell that Eevee had realized that he was in another pokémon's territory and that he hadn't been welcomed in yet, and thus was on the lookout for anyone that could possibly be a danger to his trainer and himself. It was an instinctual action on Eevee's part, really. Anabel absentmindedly put a hand down to comfort Eevee but seemed distracted by the Pokéballs that Ash continued to leave untouched on the table. She scooped them up into her hands before turning to him.
"Do you have more friends in here?" she asked, cradling them gently.
Scott took a breath as if he was about to say something but Lance shook his head quickly, wanting to see what Ash's response would be.
The boy's eyes widened more before he shook his head violently. "Friends aren't in those," he said. Lance grimaced at the sharp tone he took on. Anabel jerked backwards as though Ash had snapped at her with his teeth rather than just his words; perhaps that's what it felt like to the young girl. Scott had given Lance just the bare-bones explanation to Anabel's strange power, so he wasn't sure what the action indicated or implied.
Anabel stepped back uncertainly, shying away from Ash's vitriol. "I-I'm sorry," she said quietly, putting the shrunken Pokéballs on the ground. "It's just that Mr. Brandon and Mr. Spenser always have their friends with them, even in business meetings and serious things, and they don't have to worry about them running away or being taken, so I thought that you had lots more friends that couldn't be inside."
Ash looked mutinous at the idea of keeping any pokémon in Pokéballs at all. "Friends can stay outside like they're meant to," he muttered, hugging Fossil to himself. The Kabuto merely waved his appendages happily, legs twitching to scuttle against Ash's arms.
Anabel looked lost, as though she didn't know how to respond to that. Eevee was glaring pointedly at the boy on the bed, remaining silent when Mewtwo's own gaze narrowed at the obviously hostile pokémon. Pikachu and Riolu had stopped playing with the Pokédex and were looking at the silent confrontation as well. After a couple of seconds, the two pokémon exchanged a glance before hopping off of the bed (getting a confused look from Ash and an alarmed one from Mewtwo as they did so) and approached Anabel carefully.
Pikachu blinked up at the girl, ignoring the steady crescendo of Eevee's warning growl. He gave a quiet chirp to her, settling on his hindquarters to look Anabel in the eyes before cocking his head sideways. Anabel giggled at the gesture and shook her head, smiling slightly. Pikachu seemed pleased with the interaction.
Riolu, in the meantime, had crouched by the Pokéballs. Lance saw Mewtwo extend a hand quickly, eyes with only a hint of glowing blue, but before he could do anything, Riolu had carefully tapped the button of the Pokéball in front of her. She gave a yelp of shock when the Pokéball gave its futuristic warning noise and opened suddenly, engulfing her in red light and drawing her into the capsule.
Pandemonium erupted. Ash scrambled off of the bed, screaming wordlessly and accidentally flinging Fossil to the floor (he didn't seem to mind, and Ash ended up picking him back up as he frantically but slowly scuttled towards the violently shaking Pokéball). Porygon began to make more complex laps across the room, its physical form shifting as it darted around. Mewtwo just stared in utter shock, eyes completely open and still only barely glowing, apparently thunderstruck that he wasn't able to move fast enough to prevent whatever had happened.
Anabel seemed overwhelmed by the sudden rush of forms towards her and she staggered backwards, wordlessly whimpering as Eevee stood bravely before her, snarling at the other pokémon in case one dared to approach her. Lance and Scott moved between Anabel and the group of feral creatures, each with a hand at his belt, prepared to defend her if need be from an impulsive attack.
Everyone watched with bated breath as the Pokéball began to stop gyrating wildly, Riolu having obviously calmed down appropriately to remember how the capsule worked. The Pokéball gave its customary success noise before relaxing into its inert state.
Ash broke the stillness by shouting "Amber!" as he leapt onto the Pokéball. He began to worry at the device with his teeth, his fingers, his hands, anything, trying to wrench it open somehow by sheer force. After that failed, he turned to Mewtwo with palms outstretched, the Pokéball sitting in his hands.
"Mewtwo, don't do anything," Lance called out as firmly as he could, shaken as he was by the sudden turn of events. "If you damage the Pokéball too much, there's a chance that she could be hurt before she can be converted back into her physical form."
Mewtwo was still frozen, his mind overwhelmed by everything.
"Ash," Lance said, still trying to contain the situation. "Just click the button on the front that Ri—Amber did. It'll release her back into the world, and you won't have to worry about breaking the ball to do so. Please."
Ash looked just as overwhelmed as Mewtwo was, and there were tears clinging to the corners of his eyes as he processed Lance's orders. With shaking hands, the boy pressed the button on the Pokéball.
The device obeyed, rotating in his hand to activate where it detected less heat and therefore a greater chance of an open space. Red light poured from the opened Pokéball and quickly manifested in a small canid form, fading as quickly as it appeared.
The Riolu blinked a couple of times before shaking her head to clear it of any final cobwebs. She looked down to her paws and flexed her toes. She seemed satisfied with her inspection and turned to Ash, who gripped the Pokéball in his hand so tightly that his knuckles began to turn white.
Ash looked terrified and ashamed at the same time: terrified, Lance thought, that Amber would turn on him, and ashamed for even considering such a possibility. He cautiously held out his empty hand to her, palm up.
Amber did not look at his hand, nor did she react to it. Instead, she walked towards Ash, crooning slightly. There was something strange in the way she spoke; rather than the smooth speech of growls and barks that Riolu usually communicated in, Amber sounded like the noises she was making were stuttered and half-garbled, inflections following human speech rather than the staccato of pokémon. She seemed frustrated by something before attempting to speak again, her annoyance making it harder for her to control her tongue. Lance and Scott exchanged a bewildered look before glancing to Anabel, who seemed distraught.
"What's happening, Anabel?" Scott asked quietly.
"They're so sad for her," Anabel whispered. "But she's happy? Not exactly happy. She feels like she's remembering something sad but isn't sad about it herself. It's like she's remembering what it feels like to fall asleep and kinda halfway there."
Lance had no idea what to make of the girl's strange words. Scott merely held out an arm, inviting Anabel to run over and bury her head into the side of his body. Lance looked back at the strange ensemble to see that Mewtwo had floated over to hover by Ash, wearing the same stricken look that the boy did.
"Life is wonderful," Ash whispered, the tone of his voice slightly off, as though he were remembering something and didn't know he had said anything at all. Mewtwo remained silent, eyes staring at Amber.
The Riolu was silent now, but after a second, she held her arms out in a gesture similar to Scott's. Ash instantly dove onto her, tears finally falling, as he collapsed in relief that Amber hadn't changed from her experience as red light. Mewtwo watched on solemnly, though his posture seemed to relax slightly as it folded in onto himself.
Another bright flash of red light startled all of the occupants in the room. They all glanced over to see that Pikachu had stepped backwards and hit one of the other Pokéballs with his tail, his panic sending the capsule bouncing across the floor. Ash reached down and picked the Pokéball up once it stopped jerking around, and Pikachu poured out, hissing in displeasure at the device. He scrunched up his nose and turned away from the Pokéball pointedly.
Ash was silent for a second, watching Pikachu's injured pride, before he gave a slight snort. The quiet noise attracted Amber's attention, and she coughed out a quiet laugh of her own. In a couple of seconds, the boy and the Riolu were laughing hysterically, the tension of the room lost in the catharsis of their howls. Mewtwo finally twitched at the release of emotion, settling backwards as a small grin began to curve across his face. Lance found himself cracking a smile at their antics, and when he looked over, Scott was chuckling as Anabel's shoulders shook, even though her face was still buried in the man's patterned shirt.
"Silly Egg," Ash said out loud between laughs, making the Pikachu's fur crackle with static that he irritably shook out before pointedly turning his back on them all and jumping back onto the bed to curl up and tuck his nose under his tail.
As his amusement died down, Ash seemed more thoughtful. He looked down to the two Pokéballs in his hands and contemplated them. Anabel had looked to Scott after controlling her own giggles (Lance wondered briefly if her laughter had been caused by the overwhelming mirth in the room rather than by her own reaction to Egg's haughtiness) and when released, began to pick her way back over to Ash.
"Now they're yours forever," she said softly. Ash didn't even look to her as he nodded, still staring at the Pokéballs in his hands.
"Ash, be polite," Lance said somewhat sternly. "Look to Anabel if you want to respond to her, please."
Ash's head jerked up at Lance's gentle admonishment, having never been corrected by the man in such a manner. He looked ready to argue for a split second before deflating and looking at Anabel with resignation. Anabel blinked away her surprise that he was actually listening and pointed at the Pokéballs again.
"You can make them smaller again by clicking the button when they're inside," she explained. "They make clothes that you can stick them onto, so then they can't ever leave you."
"Who's they?" Ash ventured, finally putting the Pokéballs back down on the table (Lance noticed that one of them sparked with latent static still while the other seemed completely normal).
Anabel looked as though she was going to answer, then furrowed her brow. She glanced at Scott and Lance questioningly.
"Designers, Anabel," Scott provided. Anabel's expression lit up and she nodded sagely at Ash.
"Yes, that," she added helpfully.
Ash only seemed more confused. "What's designers?" he asked.
"I really need to give him a crash course in human civilization soon, don't I?" Lance muttered to himself. The smirk on Scott's face implied that he agreed completely with that thought.
"Why doesn't Ash eat here with us?" Anabel asked that evening. Lance had taken a short break from running his team through their flying drills to meet up with her and Scott for dinner, surprising the maintenance staff by asking for a longer table to be put in his office for that very reason.
Lance busied himself with the food on his plate for a second, trying to figure out the best way to respond to Anabel's innocent question. When he glanced back at her, she was staring at him patiently, waiting for a response.
"He never really wanted to leave that room before, or at least, he's never said that he wants to. We bring him the food he eats and he leaves the dishes for the staff to collect. If he wants to join us here, then he is more than welcome to." Anabel nodded, staring at her lap as she did so.
"Anabel, stop feeding your carrots to Eevee," Scott added in, not even looking up from his own plate as he did so.
Anabel started slightly, dropping the last remnant of cooked carrot onto the ground where Eevee lapped it up, stuttering out an apology to her guardian. After a short silence, she glanced up at Lance again. "But if he said that he wanted to, he could?" she asked.
Lance wondered what she was trying to ask for. "Of course. He's welcome to go wherever he pleases in the building, just so long as he doesn't get into too much trouble. Once his companions are more comfortable with the concept of Pokéballs, I can start giving him a basic education in training and what it means to train with your pokémon, and he'll probably start lessons with the other Masters here when they're available."
"I've also been in contact with some of the Sinnoh branch," Scott said. "They're working on tracking down a small village off of the coast of Iron Island that is apparently connected to the study of Aura. Might be a helpful lead for you." Lance nodded in thanks.
Anabel's gaze drifted over to the other corner of Lance's expansive office, where some of his smaller dragons lay in a relaxed but alert state. They were there as a secondary set of guards to the room, as well as keeping Lance company in the long and quiet days he used to spend. Altaria was in his usual place, perched on the rough scales that protruded from Haxorus's back, and while the Unovan dragon had both of his eyes closed in a mockery of sleep, Altaria watched the dining trio with an attentive eye. Anyone unfamiliar with the bird would find him unnerving, as his gaze never faltered from the table, but Lance knew that he wasn't staring at any occupant in particular but at the bowl of seasoned and roasted chesto berries.
"Would they be here if Ash was here?" Anabel asked, knowing that Lance knew who she was referring to.
He gave a silent nod of affirmation.
"Why?"
Lance blinked. "I guess it's because they like being out of stasis, as most pokémon do," he said, "and also because they like keeping an eye on me. If someone came in that they didn't like, they would be able to do something about it much more quickly if they're in the corner rather than in their Pokéballs."
Anabel seemed to think very hard about this. "They're nice though, right? So it should be fine."
Lance had the feeling that she wasn't talking about his dragons anymore. "I think it will be fine, but I can't guarantee that," he admitted. "My dragons are far more intuitive than I'll ever be, and I trust their judgment over mine most of the time. If they don't think that Ash and his friends are okay, it might be harder to convince them otherwise."
Anabel looked surprisingly untroubled by that. "They won't think that they're not okay," she said with an air of certainty.
"Why do you think that?" Lance couldn't help but ask.
"Because Ash is like them. They would be angry about sneaky people, but Ash can't be sneaky at all. He's not good at hiding anything," she said in a very matter-of-fact tone. "Mewtwo's more fun to listen for. He thinks too hard. I think he tries to think for both himself and for Ash sometimes."
"Anabel, be nice," Scott said, though mildly enough to convey that he wasn't actually trying to stop her. Regardless, she quieted down, going back to picking at the potatoes and carrots on her plate.
The next day, Ash and Mewtwo joined them at the table.
Lance didn't ask what Anabel had done or said to them to convince them to come along, merely called the kitchen and asked for two more servings of the risotto they had been presented that evening. Mewtwo seemed confused as to what to do with the utensils presented to him and watched Lance eat before clumsily picking up a spoon with his spherical fingers. Ash also didn't seem to know what to do with the utensils and resorted to carefully scooping the risotto up with his fingers and licking the food off. After a few attempts at this method, Mewtwo lifted up the spoon Ash had been presented with and tapped him between the eyes with it. When Ash gave him a stink eye in response, Mewtwo calmly ignored him, still struggling to balance the spoon between his fingers.
"If it's more comfortable for you, Mewtwo, feel free to levitate the spoon," Lance said, choosing to pointedly ignore Ash's bad manners. He felt like being smacked with a spoon was punishment enough for such actions.
For the first time, Lance heard Mewtwo make a verbal noise. It was a strange combination between a grunt and a purr, resonating in his chest, and there was a moment when Lance almost expected him to say something in Universal. That moment never came; Mewtwo's eyes simply glowed a light blue and the spoon in his hands lifted up delicately to direct the food to his mouth.
Lance felt a mental nudge. 'Good-berry-fill happy-grateful-warm warm-like-strange good-strange-good' ran through his mind before the presence pulled away. He simply nodded to Mewtwo in acknowledgement. "I'll pass it along to the cook," he said.
Ash had started using the spoon at this point, though his manners were still atrocious as he scooped the risotto up with such fervor that he spilled some everywhere. He didn't seem to mind, simply trying to eat quickly and desperately.
"Ash, slow down, it's not going to be taken away from you," Lance said. Ash froze and stared at him as though he hadn't even considered that possibility, cheeks bulging slightly. Lance sighed. "Forget I said anything. Just don't give yourself a stomachache."
Anabel had been quiet the entire time during dinner, choosing instead to stare wide-eyed at Ash's messy habits while occasionally spooning food into her own mouth. She didn't seem surprised by his behavior, though she did seem slightly taken aback by the enthusiasm of Ash's appetite.
"I told you it's better than what you used to eat before," Anabel said quietly, a slight hint of smugness in her tone. Lance looked over to Scott briefly, who seemed simultaneously surprised by this revelation and amused by Anabel's attitude.
"Ifth goom," Ash mumbled around a mouthful.
"Ash, please chew and swallow before answering. You'll be more easily understood and it's not nice to make people see your half-eaten food." Lance was starting to grow weary of constantly correcting Ash's mannerisms, though he was fairly certain he shouldn't have waited this long to begin with. The boy blinked at him owlishly before making a large effort to swallow the mouthful he had. When he started to half-choke, Mewtwo looked over with a withering gaze until Ash regained his breath.
'Time-time-time-again repeat-tire-bore,' Mewtwo briefly conveyed to Lance, who was glancing at Ash nervously as the boy struggled slightly. Lance wasn't sure if the knowledge that Ash regularly stuffed himself in that manner was as reassuring as Mewtwo seemed to have intended for it to be.
He was about to let Ash know that his food wouldn't run away if he didn't eat fast enough when he heard a musical trill. Altaria had hopped off of Haxorus and slowly approached Ash and Mewtwo. His gaze twitched back and forth between the two newcomers, twittering at them again when they just stared at him openly.
"Altaria is telling them how to use a spoon," Anabel said out loud.
"How does Altaria know how to use a spoon?" Scott asked.
Anabel shrugged. "By watching people?" she guessed.
Altaria's sudden lesson in manners seemed surprisingly well-received, more so than Lance's were, anyways. Mewtwo seemed to derive some sort of confidence that he was using the utensils correctly while Ash snatched the spoon up and scooped up the food with exaggerated slowness, looking directly at Altaria as he inched it towards his mouth. Altaria gave a reproachful chirp at his antics, fluffing his feathers up in a display of haughtiness.
Lance briefly wondered when his life had turned into some sort of cartoon. Anabel giggled at his exasperation.
The next time Lance visited Ash, Anabel and Scott had returned to their homes. They hadn't been able to stay for too long and Lance had been training whenever Anabel decided that she wanted to drop in on the boy. She was fascinated by him, Scott had confided, and she was invested in seeing him open up to others and allow the world to welcome him. She expected that he would be a charismatic, happy person, and she wanted to help facilitate that into happening as soon as it could. It had taken Scott a lot of persuading to convince her that three days wasn't enough to truly affect Ash, and he had relented in allowing Anabel to return once she completed the next step of her education with him.
Now, of course, it was time for Ash to start his education.
Lance stopped knocking on the door, opting for waiting until Mewtwo cracked the door open instead. He peered in.
A lot had changed in the room in the weeks since Ash had first arrived. The sheets weren't stripped from the bed but in a messy pile on top of it that betrayed that Ash and his friends curled up together in a nest of white cloth. The Pokéballs, once left untouched in their orderly pile, were strewn somewhat haphazardly across a table; after Egg and Amber had proven unchanged, the other pokémon found some amusement in claiming their own Pokéball. Of course, not even that simple milestone was crossed uneventfully, as when Porygon (or Program, as Ash called it) reemerged from its Pokéball, it hadn't reformed correctly, though the adaptor for it on the Pokédex had somehow recombined the coding-given-life into a strange mass of what appeared to Lance as sentient pixels. At least, most of the time. At other times, a strange, featureless ghost manifested, and at others, skeletons of ancient pokémon formed. Program didn't seem affected by this, just generally confused and slightly saddened at the loss of its stable form though it seemed satisfied to have a form at all. When Lance had tried to see what the Pokédex said about it, it had whirred, made a set of staticky noises, and grown uncomfortably warm as it tried to analyze the data it was given (worrying Lance quite a bit) before reciting [[Pokémon not recognized. Missing numbers detected. No description given. Probable level- ?. Sex and Nature of pokémon not found. Moves known- Water Gun, Water Gun, Pay Day, Bind, Sky Attack, Thunder]].
Why was Water Gun listed twice? Lance was more worried about a possible Pokédex malfunction than by the oddity that Program was, quite frankly; perhaps if it had only been Program who was so bizarre he would have cared more, but the revelations of Amber's heightened Aura, Fossil's unnatural moveset, and the terrifying agility that Egg had shown off to Anabel (which was offset by an enormous amount of calories that he had to consume) had long since jaded him to something new being discovered. If what Ash had told him about the pokémon was true, none of them were meant to be 'the norm' anyhow.
Right now, of course, Program was hovering by the TV as it enjoyed doing. As Lance watched, it dove into the cords of the screen again and appeared looking like a rotund green dummy that bounced around merrily before exiting the screen as a fossilized bat, its features not defined enough to determine which specific species. It fluttered over to Ash and landed on his head with a sound like static from the carpet. Ash glanced up slightly before turning around to see Lance, grinning widely. Lance marveled at how far the boy had come in how relaxed and trusting he was now, even if it was only when they were interacting by themselves.
"How are you doing, Ash?" Lance called out, slowly approaching. No matter how comfortable Ash was with him, Lance made sure to take precautions to keep his draconic side tamed.
There was a reason why so many of the most powerful trainers in the world were type specialists. The world was full of latent energy that manifested in ways innumerable in both pokémon and humans. The most obvious example of this was in the human psychics, whose exposure to the pokémon they trained alongside resulted in heightened mental facilities offset by fragile physical bodies, but other specialists still acquired some additional traits, though perhaps more subtly. Mixing type specialties was its own tightrope to walk on; very rarely did a human try to specialize in both fighting- and psychic-type energies, for the two demanded such vastly different lifestyles that few humans' bodies could stand the duality, while some chose to specialize in ice and water for the two elements' close similarities. To be a general specialist was to somehow balance the confluence of numerous types and their different physical or mental demands, which required far more mental focus than many early trainers were willing to devote. It was humanity's individual adaptation that made them the dominant species in the planet: without the power of choice, the world would be run by little more than the primal energies that dictated pokémon instincts, best described by the histories of rampant Legendaries destroying and rebuilding the planet to their whimsy.
Lance's chosen type granted to him a fierce intimidation and self-confident pride. He had always had what some might call arrogance, but the years of training his dragons imbued in him a presence that could not be ignored, that screamed to be respected and to reign over all others, as well as a sense of justice that had to be addressed whenever a grievance was registered. Truly, Lance became a dragon in his own right, commanding and demanding all honors be given and upheld. Energies manifested differently in everyone; Lance's own cousin, Clair, was also a Dragon Master (though not the region's most powerful, a title that Lance wore), but her training led her to an icy calm and a regal aura that demanded perfection from those surrounding her, sitting back to mete justice from behind castle walls while watching over all. Lance had always scoffed at her maturing attitude; to sit back and do nothing while others fawned over you was the worst offense to his inner dragon, and he never cared about muting himself when commanding attention and action had always carried him through his career.
He quite thought that Clair would laugh in his face if she knew how subdued he had to act around a schoolchild.
Ash shrugged. "It's good. Anabel was nice to talk to, but she yelled a lot."
Lance couldn't reconcile that description with the shy lilac-haired girl he had just seen off the day before. "She seemed rather quiet to me," he said.
"She always yelled with her head. It gave Mewtwo a headache but he's too nice to say that," Ash said matter-of-factly. Lance chuckled inwardly at that description, glancing at the figure meditating silently in the corner.
"Is that right? How interesting. Anyhow, I came here to ask if you would be willing to start in on a basic education while you're here. You may be allowed to leave at any time, but other humans won't expect to see you on your own for another five or so years, and you might like learning things here before heading out into the world. Some of the other Masters and their pokémon here would be helping you learn too. How would you feel about that?"
Ash seemed far more willing to at least consider meeting new people after Anabel and Scott's visit. "What're Masters?" he asked.
"Masters are humans who spend their entire Trainer life studying pokémon to figure out how to make them the best," Lance explained. "Most of them align with one type to focus their research. They also have to go through a series of trials—tests, if that makes more sense—to prove to the world that they're as good as they say they are. It takes a lot of work to get there, but everyone with the title has proven that they're willing to put in that work, which makes them more respectable. Am I making sense?"
Ash bobbed his head. "Can I meet them first?" he asked, which surprised Lance more than he wanted to admit.
"Of course. Three of them have rooms here that they occasionally use, while the others aren't always here and might ask to engage in shorter but more intense stretches of time while they're available. Quite a few of the Masters will be in the League for a yearly meeting, actually, as well as some other respected figures from Kanto. You could meet them all then as my charge."
Ash's head tipped sideways in confusion. "Kanto?"
Lance stifled a sigh; he had completely forgotten Ash's relative ignorance in all things human. "Right. The human world is scientifically and politically divided up into different chunks. We are currently in the Tohjo League, which spans the Kanto and Johto regions. These two areas were originally just one before the Civil War a century back, which resulted in the split but shared government. Am I making a little sense?" At Ash's nod, Lance continued. "Let me know at any point if it doesn't. Anyhow, the other regions have similar Leagues that help organize them and unify the many cities. Currently, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, and Kalos are the other recognized League regions; Alola, a group of islands in a tropical area of the world, is currently trying to build a League for themselves, though it's set up quite differently than what we've got. A couple of other regions exist under different organizations; Almia, Fiore, and Oblivia were much smaller and chose a Ranger-centric life where pokémon and humans coexist in a much friendlier context and thus didn't need the challenge of the League to get only the best humans working with pokémon. Another region, Orre, is working to unify and then set up a League, though they're a long way away from any sort of success. The layperson likes to think that the Leagues are all of one organization, and we do generally work as though we are. However, it makes the most sense to run ourselves individually, no matter how much we are cooperating with each other, as everyone knows what their region demands better than any foreigner could. The Leagues aren't the only thing connecting the regions. People like Scott set up other organizations that bring people from the regions together, and they're generally regarded as welcome to those who don't like battling, which is mainly how the Leagues determine rankings. The Leagues also put on biannual events that test the trainers that work through them to make sure that everything is still functional, though people think it's to recruit others into the League itself. Most members of the League ask to join; others are asked to join, but those are rare."
Lance realized that he had been rambling a bit. "Any last questions?" he asked.
Ash looked thoughtful. "What does 'tropical' mean?"
Lance blinked. He then let out a loud groan and settled into a chair, prepared to start at the very least the boy's literary education as soon as he could.
I wasn't going to end on an exposition dump, but this is both a clean stopping point and is starting to get unnecessarily long. Uni started up again and I've got more classes than I should, as well as two jobs and meetings for a student-run theater production, so I can't guarantee when I next update. I can guarantee more Ash/Mewtwo interactions with non-Lance humans soon, as well as some time jumps to get to a time that I'd prefer to be at. As always, please leave a review if you have thoughts and I'll try my best to get to them.