"I really appreciate you helping me out with this, Lance," the spiky-haired man said. "Honestly, this entire decision has been a little bit… out of character for me, I guess."
"Do you mean the part in which you got back from Kalos and sent me a frantic email at two in the morning about how to apply for Mastership?" Lance asked drily. "Yeah, I'd say that spontaneous late-night decisions aren't what I expect from you."
Blue shrugged, raising an eyebrow at Lance. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," he said, "but I was serious then and I'm serious now."
"I can tell," Lance said, glancing over the team registration form in his hand. The team that Blue had amassed was impressive, to say the least, and filled with Pokémon that the Master he was challenging didn't command. Refreshing. "But really? You're going after Giovanni's position? Somehow I thought Kalos would affect you to try and take Green's title from her."
"Green is a coward who hides behind the protection that her Mastership gives her," Blue sniffed. "I don't need to try and oust her to know that for myself. Giovanni's been a pillar in the Masters for decades, now; it would be far more impressive if I manage to finally topple him from that."
Lance chuckled. "I see. Out of curiosity, why is your Charizard listed as a possible back-up Pokémon?"
Blue leaned back in his chair, sighing loudly. "I love my old Kantonian team," he admitted. "They're dependable, well-trained, damn near can read my mind, but they don't quite fit the niche that I'm trying to fill. I didn't really know I wanted to fill this niche until I visited Kalos and saw the true powers of the Ground-types that lived there. Giovanni focuses so much on sheer power that he doesn't seem to see the hidden potential in all of the clever strategies that any mid-level Ground-type Pokémon can carry out, y'know? Charizard's the only member of my original team that can come even close to understanding that power and knowing how to wield it himself." Blue made a slight face. "That being said, his species doesn't necessarily lend itself to the Ground-type. No matter how clever Charizard is, all he can really do is Earthquake selectively, if we're going to be honest. He's an easy go-to for any power plays I would want to make outside of battling as a Master, though. The others on my original team are more than happy just waiting for the next time I set out to travel. They're content staying on training grounds."
Lance hummed in acknowledgement. "Only a few Masters tend to keep Pokémon outside of their intended Type, perhaps because they can't devote as much time. Even fewer have unrelated Types in any roster, more to avoid conflict than anything. As long as you commit to the team here" – Lance waved the form he held—"you should be fine."
Blue gave him a toothy smirk. "Glad to hear it, Champ."
"Don't call me that," Lance said, almost automatically.
"Yeah, yeah," Blue said. He stretched slightly and stood up. "Seriously though, thanks for taking the time out of your day to review my paperwork. By the way, Squirt was babbling about coming by sometime. Pops gave him an Egg to take care of, and apparently, it's close to hatching. He wants to show off to your kid, I reckon."
"I'll pass the memo on," Lance said, neatening the papers that Blue had handed to him. "I'll process these for you; they should be ready by next week. Do you want to bring Gary by then?"
"That sounds reasonable," Blue said. "By the way, Duplica apparently found another Ditto in the mansion ruins on Cinnabar. She's debating on training it, I guess? One day, she'll just have a team completely of Ditto, and we will all flee from her army of thousands."
"Mansion ruins? I don't think I've heard of them."
"Really? It was a bit of a scandal last year," Blue said, looking at Lance oddly. "I guess Blaine didn't find it important enough to officially report to the League. Someone apparently heard a distant noise on the north side of the island. Whenlaw enforcement went to check it out, all they found were the ruins of what looked like a magnificent mansion. Locals were confused because they had never noticed a mansion there before, and apparently there was some sort of lab found in the basement that was completely burned down. It was blocked off to any but those with the highest clearance, as no one knew what the lab was for and thus declared it a biohazard. I think that Duplica might have been the first person in months to actually enter it. She mentioned that the entire lab seemed nonfunctional, though I heard she found an abundance of Grimer colonies that she ousted. Too bad Koga doesn't seem to want any more, no?"
"Indeed," Lance said. "Was there any sign of who might have used the facility?"
Blue shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. You're going to have to go check it out yourself. By the way, you wouldn't know where Red disappeared off to, would you? It doesn't feel right starting off on this entire thing without getting to test myself against him one more time."
"He's become a bit of a mysterious type," Lance said. "I think he decided to go and work on getting Alola to officially submit a League. He might still be out there."
Blue let out a loud sigh that turned into a groan. "Damn it. He's so inconsiderate."
Lance flew to Cinnabar the next day atop Wyvern, who snarled as she saw the mansion ruins that Blue had mentioned. Her rider whispered for her to quiet before directing her to land at the edge of the forest that had almost swallowed the burned shell of a building. Wyvern insisted on staying out of her Pokéball, staying hunched over on all four limbs and crooning jaggedly when he tried to return her.
The mansion ruins still clung to the acrid smell of smoke, which tickled Lance's nose and made Wyvern grunt irritably. The first floor still held signs of its former glory: charred marble, cracked oak finishing. What appeared to be a fine rug was mostly scorched apart from one corner of its woven tessellation. Some misty rains must have washed away the ash and soot from the fire proper; though the mansion looked as though it had burned down rather recently, nothing exhaled debris into the air.
"This place is a wreck," Lance muttered under his breath. He hadn't been expecting a luxury hotel or anything, but the dilapidation could be described as sad at best. Wyvern gave a derisive snort of agreement.
"Do you think we'll find anything here worth looking at?" Lance asked his companion, kicking a shard of stone over.
Wyvern rolled her eyes at him.
"Yeah, yeah, I should focus on the work at hand," he muttered. He nudged a fallen pillar. "This looks more like decades of dilapidation than just a year or so of destruction, though," he said. "I can't imagine the amount of power used to destroy something like this. I don't even think you and the other two could do this much damage."
Wyvern narrowed her eyes. She didn't seem to appreciate his easy dismissal of the three Dragonites' power.
"You don't have to throw a tantrum about it," Lance said, poking her shoulder. "It's nothing to brag about, really. You don't have to be this destructive to be strong."
Wyvern snorted derisively.
Lance sighed before moving forward. He idly kicked a fallen roof tile, which skidded across the ground before apparently spilling over the side of something and falling through a hole somewhere. Lance heard the shard clatter somewhere far beneath him; curious, he asked Wyvern to see how the tile could have fallen down. She managed to quickly unearth a hole just large enough for Lance to fit through, scowling as she realized that she wouldn't be able to fit through as easily. Wyvern grunted before delicately tapping her Pokéball, returning herself. Lance quickly re-released her beneath the hole's surface.
"Anything interesting down there?" he called down to her. His voice echoed in the apparently cavernous basement.
Wyvern rumbled before lighting one of her massive claws up in a Fire Punch that she waved around like a torch. Lance noticed Wyvern stiffen, a low growl persistently slipping from her mouth.
"I'm coming down," Lance announced before leaping off the edge of the hole. Wyvern wasted no time in darting over and catching him on her back.
He patted her on the neck in thanks (she gave a huff of acknowledgement and reached over with her non-fiery claw to pat his hand in return) before digging through his pockets for a glass sphere full of Luminous Moss. He gestured for Wyvern to snuff out her claw before holding the small ball up.
The Moss glowed with an eerie light as Wyvern slowly began to drift further into the laboratory, flying through small shafts of sunlight so that the Moss stayed powered up somehow. Lance had thought that the single-use of the plant would be enough to fully investigate the mansion ruins; as he looked around, a sinking feeling in the very bottom of his stomach suggested otherwise.
As annihilated as it looked, it seemed as though this basement was once a high-tech facility. Machinery that Lance couldn't even begin to comprehend lay dormant on the ground, some still somewhat intact albeit with some spiderwebbing fractures on glass implements while others were strewn across the ground in countless pieces. Wyvern drifted over bundles of wires that looked short-circuited and frayed, rubber either corroded or peeling away to reveal hair-thin strings of copper. A strange orange trace was scattered on the ground, as though it had been suspended in some medium that splashed across the floor and dried up. Practically every surface was scorched or broken in some way, and Lance could see the shells of some computers that had been torn apart with nary a thought. Lance wondered if he could salvage some fragment of a hard drive to investigate what had happened before dismissing it as a fool's errand.
The entire basement smelled of mildew and rust, and Lance had the growing feeling that there wasn't much else to find there. He was mildly frustrated by this; he had flown all the way from the League to see if there was some evidence of a darker power rising in Kanto, and nothing seemed to be borne of it. Lance instructed Wyvern to make one last, somewhat slower loop, asking her to fly a bit closer to the floor as the Luminous Moss had lost almost all of its potency since being thrown into darkness.
In this last sweep, Lance noticed one corner of the room that had somehow mostly escaped the carnage of the rest of the basement. It was clearly a separate room at some point; the wall was falling apart and wires melted together into a strange pool of metal and rubber, and a desk had once sat at the corner where two walls met. The desk must have blown back and fallen over, as it lay on its side on the ground with, to Lance's surprise, a single scorch mark and not much else.
"Wyvern, let's take a look at that one," Lance said, pointing to the corner with the Moss.
The two descended, and Wyvern wasted no time in picking the desk up with ease. Something inside one of the drawers shifted audibly, and Wyvern quickly ripped that drawer out of the desk. She peered in but seemed disappointed at what was inside. When Lance reached in, he found a rather ratty, beaten up notebook.
He only needed one glance at a random page to find a familiar scrawl telling a haunting tale. Lance quickly shut the book and stuffed it into an empty pocket.
"Let's head back. I told Ash I would have a lesson ready for him this evening." Wyvern perked up at the mention of the boy and shot out of the basement, making herself a hole large enough with a deft Hyper Beam so that she could dart back, Lance balanced on her back and held in place within a Protect bubble.
Lance stared at Gary. In the year that he had known the boy, he had never been vibrating so violently as he was now.
"Just how many Pokéblocks did you nick from me?" Blue asked, holding his son down with a hand on his head.
Gary scoffed, pouting slightly. "Nunya," he muttered.
Blue flicked the back of his head. "Bratty kid," he said, glancing at Lance apologetically. "Sorry, Champ; didn't think I'd be delivering him on a sugar-high. I can see if Yellow's still down to watch him, if it's easier."
Lance shook his head. "Pallet's a bit of a ways away, and I'm sure that Ash will be able to tire him out enough anyhow. Feel free to leave him to run around with the other kids."
Blue snorted. "Alright then, you little scamp, get going," he said, nudging Gary. The boy smirked before running down a hallway, shouting down it, followed closely by a ball of brown fur with a cream ruff.
"I see that his egg hatched," Lance noted.
"Yep. They've been practically inseparable. It's sickeningly adorable." Blue let out a deep sigh. "I hate to admit it, but my dad was right yet again. Damn him."
"I would argue that Samuel being good at his job means that he can help you better," Lance said.
Blue waved him off. "Yeah, yeah. I'm assuming you're not going to watch the actual fight?"
Lance chuckled at Blue's lack of subtlety in shifting the conversation. "That's how they usually are. We Masters like to keep each other's techniques secret until exhibition matches and random spars. Hasn't Samuel told you how it is?"
Blue snorted. "Pops likes keeping his secrets as much as the next guy," he said before standing up. "Well, I'm just in time to be fashionably late. Smell ya later." As the man walked out of Lance's office and strode down the hall, Lance decided not to try and figure out what he meant by his parting statement.
'Fire-Drake, the children desire a scrap and I haven't the knowledge on how to oversee it. They request your presence,' a familiar voice echoed in his head. Sighing to himself, Lance stood up and stared at the door.
"Well, where should I head?" he asked aloud.
A pause. 'They claim that they should be fine in the room. I am certain that any barrier I set up will suffice to minimize damages.'
Lance stood up and strode down the hallway. His footsteps resonated strangely in the emptiness; Green had finally peeled herself away from the League mere hours prior, just missing the chance to tease her old rival, and the League buildings were almost empty for the first time in days. After knocking out of habit, Lance let himself into Ash's room.
It had taken a short while, but Ash had soon left his mark on the room. His clothes were either hung neatly in the closet or folded up in the dresser, though one rogue jacket was slung on one of the knobs at the foot of his bed. He had sequestered a veritable mountain of pillows to throw onto the bed; smaller nests of pillows where the Pokémon chose to sleep were not quite dismantled.
Of course, all of the Pokémon were now perched on various pieces of furniture—Egg on top of the closet, Amber on the table, Fossil from under the bed, and Program back in his normal spot in the television—as they stared at the newcomer in the room. Gary must have scooped his Eevee up and coaxed it to stand proudly on his shoulders, as it was currently attempting to balance itself by putting its front paws on top of his head. Gary didn't seem too bothered by the modification to his Pokémon's posture, standing proudly and surprisingly steadily.
Mewtwo was sitting next to Ash, who stared at Eevee with awed eyes. When Lance walked in, Mewtwo's eyes glanced over to his and the Pokémon seemed to sigh in relief. 'Thank the Creator,' he grumbled.
"Finally!" Gary chirped, noticing Lance walk in. He jumped up, bounced slightly, and folded his hands behind his back, blinking up at the Dragon Master. "Mister Master Lance, would you please consider refereeing this quick spar between the two of us?"
Lance stopped himself from laughing out loud at his enthusiasm as well as his humorously stilted attempt at respect. "Of course," he said. "What else would I do with my title?"
Gary nodded seriously, as though he could not think of any more important event. His Eevee might have also, though it was harder to distinguish if he did due to the boy's gesture.
"And Ash? Are you ready?"
Ash gave his own determined nod.
"Alright, challengers, if you could please go to opposite ends of your field so that Mewtwo can safely prepare the arena for you two. I declare this a one-on-one match with standard until-fainting rules. Trainers, you have five minutes to prepare your chosen Pokémon."
Gary immediately peeled Eevee off of himself and began giving the Evolution Pokémon an enthusiastic pep talk. Lance gestured to Ash to come over.
"No matter which partner you choose, keep in mind that in a match, it's only fair to call out your moves verbally and in Universal," Lance said quietly. "You may be used to acting on an instinct, but there's a chance that you could be accused of trying to distract your opponent's Pokémon. This is a test to see if you can successfully use your plain words to dictate what you want to happen and trust that your Pokémon know what you mean by extension. Do you think you can do that?"
Ash nodded again. He looked around the room for a proper dueling partner to Eevee before his eyes landed on a twitching, eager Pokémon.
It only took making eye contact with Ash for Egg to scramble off of the closet and in front of his beloved Trainer. He cooed up to the boy, cheeks already sparking in anticipation.
"Okay Egg, I know that Master Surge taught us a lot, but we're fighting Gary and his new partner," Ash said. "I want us to focus on basic techniques this time—Rai and Chu seemed to think that your power stores aren't actually ready for the bigger moves and said that we need to exercise them this way, so no complaining."
Egg pouted but reluctantly nodded. He liked the big, flashy moves, Lance guessed.
Ash began to whisper into Egg's ears, the Pikachu nodding fervently in agreement to whatever he was suggesting. Lance backed away to allow the boys to plan on their own. Gary was giving his Eevee an equally enthusiastic pep talk, though the vulpine Pokémon seemed a little more confused about what he was saying.
"Alright, Trainers!" Lance called out after a couple of minutes, clapping loudly to get the boys' attentions. "If you could please stand at your side of the arena?"
Ash and Gary hurried to the sides closest to them in the little rectangle that Mewtwo had erected. Egg and Eevee dashed into the makeshift field, standing before the boy they were championing confidently.
"This will be fought until one Pokémon falls unconscious or the match itself is called. We shall begin in three… two… one!" Lance said, crisply slicing his hand down in front of him.
"Egg, go! Set up the field with a Thunder Wave!"
The Pikachu squeaked—his cheeks flared with sparks and he slammed his tail against the ground, allowing the sparks to ripple outwards from where his tail hit.
"Eevee, quick! Use Sand Attack so that you can walk!"
Eevee spat out a mewl before leaping up, scattering dust across the floor. The Thunder Wave seemed to awkwardly skitter; its concentric circles disrupted by Eevee's move. His attempts didn't seem to be completely successful though, as Eevee landed on top of a current that moved erratically towards him. The Pokémon winced in pain, limping on the paralyzed foot.
"That's it!" Ash encouraged. "Now, Nasty Plot into Thunder Shock!"
Egg sniggered under his breath, looking at Eevee with a sinister gleam in his eye. A second later, an arc of electricity shot towards the affected Pokémon.
"Get out of the way!" Gary said. Eevee's paw shifted and he almost turned illusory as he shot to one side with a Quick Attack. Egg's Thunder Shock careened into the ground, drawing the Thunder Wave towards it before dispelling the entire attack.
"Make a Wish, Eevee!" The Pokémon closed his eyes, glowed briefly, and called out loudly as a shimmering halo around him dissipated. "Now, Covet on Egg!"
A sudden naughty gleam came to Eevee's eyes, and he darted towards Egg intently, paw outstretched.
Ash went to call something out but hesitated for a second. Egg looked over to him, uncertain of what to do, and Eevee took the distraction to bowl straight into the Pikachu.
"Egg, Electro Ball!" Ash said frantically. Egg nodded to him before screeching again, drawing electric energy to himself. The energy began to coalesce into a tight orange ball that crackled as it rolled onto the base of Egg's tail. The Pikachu leapt up to throw the Electro Ball on top of Eevee.
"Eevee, dodge!" Gary tried to command, but the move was slightly too fast for Eevee to avoid, even with the boost that Quick Attack might have given him. The Pokémon wailed indignantly, shaking off the final crackles of static that raked through his fur.
Eevee shimmered slightly once more, the dancing light stripping away a good deal of the sparks. Lance noted that Samuel must truly have bred his grandson's companion to perfection, much like Ash's had come trained for—
"Double Team! Spread out!" Ash recovered somewhat slowly to the realization that Eevee had healed himself back up. "Once you're ready, go in for a Quick Attack!" Egg barked out in recognition before sliding himself into an array of illusory copies that surrounded Eevee and began to run in a clockwise circle around the Pokémon. Eevee looked nervous, glancing towards Gary helplessly. The boy was staring at Egg's many copies with intensity before a slight smirk cracked his mouth wide open.
"Sand Attack! Aim for his back!" Gary called out.
Eevee squeaked before kicking a foot out and sending a spray of dust that clung to only one Pikachu's fur. Egg grumbled at being sussed out so quickly but changed his trajectory to send him careening into Eevee before he could take advantage of the failed Double Team. Eevee had the instinct to slide into Quick Attack and dart away this time, leaving the two Pokémon to chase each other around.
"Try Electro Ball again," Ash said, biting his lower lip.
Gary snorted slightly. "Dodge it with Quick Attack again, Eevee!"
Eevee gave an assertive squeak, preparing to leap to the side with a single fluid burst of speed, but the muscle spasms from Egg's earlier Thunder Wave came back suddenly and the Evolution Pokémon collapsed on the ground. Egg gave a victorious screech as he flicked his tail and threw the crackling ball right at Eevee's back. He landed deftly, prepared to spring out of the way of Eevee's immediate counterattack.
Eevee wailed plaintively upon impact, flopping onto his stomach on the ground. He didn't get back up, though he kept making tiny mewls of discomfort.
Both boys blinked.
"Eevee? Can you get up, bud?" Gary asked cautiously. The petulant pout that Eevee shot at him in response somehow conveyed both an insulted pride at Gary's lack of faith in him and a spoiled plea to stop working.
Ash shrugged. "Let's just call that a draw," he said. Lance chuckled at the olive branch that Gary immediately accepted, walking over to pick Eevee up to comfort him. Egg growled out a complaint at the match being cut short but was easily placated by a scratch behind his ears.
Lance wondered vaguely why all idyllic times felt foreboding to him now. The singed journal he had found in the laboratory ruins burned in his inner jacket pocket.
Tracking the other Masters down after their typical get-togethers was much harder than it seemed. While most were supposed to be at their chosen Gyms during the League season, they usually tended to keep a communication device and a Teleporter on their person and do whatever they felt like. It had apparently only blown up in one Master's face before; Green and her Wigglytuff had floated slightly too high for her Gym attendants back at Chrysanthemum Island to reach her, and it had taken her an extra hour to handily destroy the impatient challenger.
Of course, Blaine was somewhat more predictable than the Fairy Master.
Lance directed Drakon to dive into the caldera of the volcano, ignoring the rundown Gym shell that Blaine had left in town as a hint for the most intrepid challengers. He didn't attempt an Aftershock landing; there was far too high a possibility of Lance landing in seething magma, and it was incredibly easy for Drakon to casually land, unperturbed by the extreme heat. Blaine wasn't in sight, but his Magmar partner watched from a pool of lava that sat in the middle of the makeshift battlefield that Blaine had constructed. Lance nodded to the placid Magmar, who nodded back before closing his eyes and settling into the comfort of molten rock.
"Blaine? I've got something to show you," Lance called out to the empty air.
"Is that so? Then answer me this, Dragon Master Lance," a booming, enthusiastic facsimile of Blaine's voice said, the sound echoing across the circular chamber.
Lance rolled his eyes in response to Blaine's theatrics.
"If you please—how many Pokémon evolve via use of a Fire Stone, and which exactly are they?" Blaine's voice asked, question ending with a sharp intake of breath as Blaine waited for his response with bated breath.
Magmar rolled his eyes and gurgled from his pool, sinking in further as if to escape his Trainer's embarrassing security system.
"Five," Lance said. "Eevee, Pansear, Vulpix, Growlithe, Capsakid. Now—"
"Very good!" Blaine's voice cut him off. "There are two more questions in this impromptu quiz, and then, we shall see as you truly are!" A canned thunder effect sounded.
"Blaine, you need to update your questions, you've asked me the same three things for the past few years—"
"Question two!" Blaine's voice paused dramatically. "Name all extant Fire-type lines found in the Sinnoh region, circa Cynthia's reign!"
Lance was rubbing at his temples now, trying to alleviate the headache he could sense growing. "Trick question. You could always find the Chimchar and Ponyta lines, but due to a series of treaties with Kanto, Cynthia was able to introduce Eevees to Sinnoh, making Flareon also a viable Fire-Type found in that region. Blai—"
"Excellently stated! You're on fire today!" A low-quality drumroll began to rumble in the volcano. "Final question! The! Last! One! Make it count, Dragon Master Lance! Now! What was the team that the last winner of the Master's Cup used for his victory?"
"Gothitelle, Gardevoir, Talonflame, Garchomp, Gyarados, and, most notably, a Pachirisu. And before you ask, he works in ACE as a strategic commander now." Lance tapped his foot. "Are you done?"
"Well done, Dragon Master Lance! You've made it past the quiz and to the next part of the trial! Now prepare—"
The voice was cut off as Magmar, who had finally decided that he was perturbed enough by the sound, spat out a bead of fire that shot through the air, and hit something on the wall with pinpoint accuracy. Lance could see the slightest of sparks shoot from a neatly severed wire as the voice stuttered into a stop.
"Magmar, you really need to stop destroying my technology whenever you feel like it," a much more muffled, grumbling voice said from Lance's left. "I can't keep replacing everything just because you decide you don't like it anymore." Blaine was carefully making his way up a staircase hewn into the wall of the volcano.
"In his defense, it was getting a little grating," Lance said. "Not to mention, you haven't updated your aerial security questions in quite some time."
Blaine snorted. "I don't need them to be updated. I need it to stall whoever managed to get into this place from the air long enough for me to gauge if it's worth talking to them or not."
"Wouldn't Magmar just do that?" Lance asked. Magmar snickered in agreement, still sunk deep into the lava.
"Don't give him an even bigger head," Blaine grumbled. "Why were you looking for me, anyways?"
Lance held the journal up. "Does this look familiar to you?"
Blaine froze, staring at the object in Lance's hand. "N-no, but it feels like it should," he said, walking over cautiously. He took it from the Dragon Master, examining it closely, rubbing a finger over scrapes in the leather and dusting off the ash that coated it. He slowly opened the cover, flinching as he recognized his own handwriting.
"Where did you find this?" Blaine asked, his voice monotone.
"It was in the ruins of a laboratory on this island. Blue mentioned it when he came by to ask me to look over his forms before submitting them, and I was curious enough to investigate. That journal was all that was left."
Blaine turned a page, then the next, and the next. Lance watched as he quietly put the journal into his pocket for later scrutiny. "It's strange to read something in your own hand and have no memory of writing it," he said after a long pause.
"I wouldn't know," Lance said.
Blaine gave him a withering look. "I can't tell what these notes are on. It's baffling me, and I hate being baffled. I'll be working on this for a little bit. I'll send a note." Without another word, Blaine turned and left the arena. Lance watched him walk away before calling Drakon to him again and taking off into the crisp air.
It was fortunate for Lance that Sabrina decided that she was going to drop in to work with Mewtwo the next day. Blue had planned to bring Gary when he came by later for yet another test, and Lance arranged with Scott for Anabel to come by to amuse Ash while Mewtwo was called off to another room in the Sabrina went in to join Mewtwo, he recounted what Blaine had said about the journal and what it might mean.
"He didn't remember writing in a journal of research that wasn't more than a decade old?" Sabrina said. "How very peculiar, especially for Blaine."
"Do you have any idea how that might happen? You'd know best out of anyone," Lance said.
Her hair started to gently float a bit higher as she thought about Lance's question. "It sounds to me like a vast memory block, though to mask even the very context that Blaine would need to understand his own work is incredibly difficult," Sabrina said. "I'd postulate that the psychic to do so was either vastly powerful or trained to do such things. I wouldn't be surprised if both power and finesse was needed."
"It could be done, though?" Lance said.
"I'd say so," Sabrina said slowly. "I haven't done anything to that scale, but I would say that I've performed a similar procedure. It's surprisingly simple, actually. If one were to know the exact memory one wanted to cover up, it would be nothing more than focusing on that memory, layering false memories on top, and sealing any threads that might lead to that information off. They might not have even blocked off his entire memory of that time; he might have been led to believe that he had a different position on the same project, one that gave him less clearance to know what he did. Blaine is intellectually a genius, Lance. There's very little he couldn't figure out. His memory was most likely manipulated on any sort of recent work that he remembered having a strangely menial position on. He has long since outclassed any sort of assistant work."
"Would finding those threads and trying to loosen them up be the best way to get to the blocked memory?"
"I'd say so, yes." Sabrina's hair fell back into place and she carefully floated herself back down. "I'm off, now. I'll be done when Mewtwo returns to you."
"Of course," Lance said.
The Dragon Master had made it down to Ash's room when he burst out of it, Gary close behind. Egg was balanced on Ash's shoulders while Gary's Eevee chased after the boys. Anabel came flying by afterwards, her own Eevee dutifully following behind.
"And where are you all off to?" Lance muttered under his breath, deciding to follow close enough behind to ensure their mischief was kept at a minimum.
The three children burst into an arena that Lance kept up for Ash's training. After a few minutes of general scuffling and muffled shouts, Lance felt vaguely certain that nothing too dastardly was going to come of the children and left to finish up some last few notes.
Lance ended up inviting Blue, Gary, and Anabel to stay at the League for dinner before going home. Rather than cramming into Lance's office, the group filed into a somewhat less used room across the hallway to eat whatever had been prepared for them. Lance watched Ash listlessly poke at his salad, eyeing Gary warily. Gary, for his part, was wearing a smug, wide grin. Anabel looked mortified.
Blue cleared his throat. "Gary? Anything you want to share with the class?" he asked, spearing a segment of roasted tamato berry and popping it into his mouth as he stared his son down.
"Not much, Pa," Gary said, poking at a bit of tamato berry on his own plate after watching his father eat one. "Just that Anabel likes Ashy."
Ash dropped his fork on his plate with a loud clang and immediately turned bright red. Anabel had her head in her hands. Lance thought he could hear her quietly squealing to herself.
"Is that so? Why do you say that?" Blue asked, nonchalantly prodding at another bit of food and pointedly ignoring the other two children.
Gary gave Blue an incredulous look. "Can't you tell?" he asked, gesturing towards the reactions his two friends made. "Also, she gets really weirdly excited that Ash knows which Eevee is mine and which is hers. I think he likes her too."
Lance had never quite appreciated how frank children were.
"Why do you say that?" Blue repeated with a hint of the smirk that stretched across Gary's face.
"He likes holding her Eevee for her," Gary confided. "And he gets really red about it all."
Ash and Anabel both looked away from each other. Both were staring at the ground as though it would swallow them whole.
"Isn't that sweet, Lance?" Blue said, openly smirking now. "They're so sweet, aren't they?"
"Of course," Lance said dispassionately, focusing on cutting a particular piece of onion into smaller and smaller pieces. "Very cute. Just like you and Green used to be."
Immediately, Blue's expression sharpened and he glared at Lance. Ash perked up slightly at the familiar name.
"Green? Like the Fairy Master?" Ash ventured.
"Oh yes," Lance said. He examined one bit of onion skewered on his fork. Blue's eyes seared into his head, demanding that he stop talking. "Samuel's told me that he thought she and Blue here held a flame for each other at one point. They apparently would pick fights over nothing simply to talk to each other. Very charming. Of course, now that it's little more than childhood rivalry, she's been wanting to have her own daughter meet Gary, here."
It was Gary's turn to narrow his eyes at Lance.
"I've heard that the girl goes by Leaf," Lance said. "She's apparently as stubborn as Green herself used to be, and she's got a vested interest in Steel-type Pokémon. I think Green's considering getting her a Mawile or some other non-Kanto native that she's more familiar with to get started. Nothing but the best for her little girl." Lance looked up, finally looking at the two Oaks at the table. "I could very easily convince her to bring Leaf over the next time that the two of you are here, if you'd like."
"Absolutely not," Blue said flatly.
Lance shrugged, sneaking a wink at Ash and Anabel, who both giggled at the dusty pink that both Gary and Blue's cheeks had turned. "Option's always open," he said mildly. "Should I ask for dessert to be brought in?"
Lance had a brief meeting with Sabrina after her lesson with Mewtwo. The Oaks had long since left, and Beheeyem had flashed into his office, nodded to Lance, and whisked Anabel away.
"I've been pondering what you've told me earlier. Though I don't formally know who your literal-figurative example is, I began to slowly inform Mewtwo of a postulated procedure to locate and manipulate a placed memory block. He seemed very proficient in it—he understood what I was describing immediately and was able to replicate my results with minimal effort. It seems his mental exercises are doing him well."
Lance hummed. "Would you trust him with another's mind?" he asked.
Sabrina shrugged. "More than most, but it's a good rule of thumb to not trust your mind to an outside influence," she said. "I'd say he has the delicacy to be able to attempt dissolving any theoretical memory block and the good sense to not try it unless absolutely necessary."
Lance nodded, deep in thought. Sabrina patiently waited for him to word the next question that he was thinking of. Before he could ask it, the door burst open, a light flashed, and Ash ran in, Egg on his shoulder, Amber at his heels, and Mewtwo anxiously floating after them all, lowering a series of invisible protective shields with a blink of an eye.
"Hi, Sabby," Ash said, grinning up at her.
Sabrina narrowed her eyes at the boy. "Hello, scoundrel," she said, her voice a steady monotone.
"You sound really creepy talking like that," Ash said.
"Ash, be polite," Lance interjected.
Ash shrugged his apology.
"Can I help either of you, scoundrel or student? Or, perhaps, a member of your motley crew?" Sabrina flicked Egg's cheek. "Perhaps, this little rat?"
"Mewtwo mentioned that you're starting to teach him high-level things, and it got me thinking," Ash said. "Why don't you try to teach me what you're teaching him?"
Sabrina froze, stunned into stillness. "I don't know if I follow you," she said.
Ash tapped his foot impatiently. "I know there are rules for matches and rules for the League. That's all fun. It would be super cool to be able to talk to anyone on my team with just my mind, though! Imagine the strategic advantages that would give me!" His eyes shone.
"I don't have to imagine, as that is mainly how I communicate with my team members," Sabrina said. "You do realize that Mewtwo would be able to establish such a link in those situations during which you may want that skill? It doesn't do for a single member of a large unit to hide an ability from others, and it isn't advantageous to have more than one specialist of a niche skill such as psychic ability."
It finally occurred to Ash that Sabrina was saying no, and he began to pout. "But it would be so cool. And Anabel said she can do it."
"Be that as it may, I cannot hone the power if it is not innate within you. That Mewtwo has such a strong connection to his well of power bodes well for any team the two of you are on together; you have no need for such nonsense in your head." Sabrina paused. "And I would like to reiterate that my name is Sabrina. This past year may have shown you incapable of remembering that, but I'd like for you to at least try."
Ash grumbled as he left, ushered out by Mewtwo who blinked them out of existence before closing the door behind them.
"He seems to like practicing his skills," Lance said, gesturing to the party's disappearance. "That was practically instantaneous."
Sabrina nodded in agreement, staring at the closed door. "He is a wonderful pupil. If only his Trainer were more inclined to put in such effort at remembering how people prefer to be called." She turned her gaze back to him. "He insists on calling me that horrid abbreviation and not the name that I'd like for you to use."
Lance shrugged. "He's a stubborn kid. I can't explain him."
Sabrina wrinkled her nose at that. "What were you asking after before that rude interruption?" she asked.
"Ah, right. I was curious how refined Mewtwo's technique had gotten," Lance said.
Sabrina gave him a probing look, her eyes briefly glowing blue. A year of interacting with Mewtwo had made Lance sensitive to a mental touch, and so he could feel Sabrina carefully sifting through his thoughts in search of something. His motivations? His considerations? He wasn't quite sure. Sabrina seemed satisfied after a couple of seconds and withdrew.
"Well, yes, he would be able to do what you're thinking of," she said. "I would normally caution against it, but he would perhaps be the most suited for such a task, both in terms of mental power and prowess."
With that, Sabrina released her Alakazam and they teleported out. Lance sighed and steeled himself for the strange conversation he was about to have.
'What?' Lance noted that Mewtwo had gone stock-still.
"It sounds difficult, but doable based on what Sabrina has told me," Lance reaffirmed.
Mewtwo seemed thoughtful for a second. 'I suppose. It doesn't feel... foreign to try. I feel strangely certain that this will be simple for me.' He examined a hand, holding it out for his own perusal. 'I don't know why I believe so strongly in this, but my body is aware of what I must do and I will be able to complete it fully.' He turned his gaze to Lance. 'Why is that?'
"I couldn't tell you," Lance said with a shrug, "but perhaps that will be Blaine's first bit of research to perform after this. Are you ready?"
Mewtwo nodded, choosing to remain silent.
It took less than five minutes for Mewtwo to carefully peel away the mental blocks built in Blaine's head and quickly disguise himself when the man burst into a sitting position. He seemed alarmed and overwhelmed.
"Blaine? Is everything alright?" Lance asked, drawing Blaine's attention to himself.
"It's... how did I not remember any of this?" Blaine said under his breath, leaning forward and clutching his head. "It was such a short period of time and yet, I could never forget any of it. I was too fascinated by the sheer mad genius of it all to be scared away." He got up, stumbling almost drunkenly over to his travel bag. He immediately tore it open, pulling out everything inside with a desperation Lance had never seen in him before. "I need- I need a notebook, a pencil, a pen, anything at all to dictate all of this. It's- it's all madness. Horrible, unending, captivating madness. It's not all back, but it's going to be, I can feel it." Finally he found a sheet of paper and a writing implement and started to furiously scribble onto it.
"If you don't mind me asking, whose madness?" Lance ventured.
Without pausing for a moment or looking up from his erratic note-taking, Blaine said, "Dr. Archibald Fuji. A twisted, brilliant man. A smear on the name of science itself." He paused what he was writing and scrawled out some lines on the corner of his sheet, cutting it off and handing it to Lance. "That's where he lives now. His work in genetic engineering and the state of the consciousness is truly remarkable."
The shabby home in Lavender Town that Blaine had directed Lance and Ash to did not impress either of them. Lance couldn't imagine a renowned scientist working out of such a rundown house.
Ash perked up as they walked up to the building. "I hear a lot of people in there," he said.
Lance looked over to him, puzzled. "I don't hear anything, Ash," he said.
Ash huffed. "Well, you might not recognize some of them, I guess," he said. "They're hard to miss, though."
Lance didn't reply to that, though he tried to be more attentive.
An older man with no hair, a pair of round glasses, and a tightly styled beard answered. "Yes, may I help you?" he asked. His eyes widened upon seeing Lance; the Cubone in his arms jumped down and ran further into the house.
"Hello, I'm Dragon Master Lance of Blackthorn. Do you think my ward and I could come inside? This may not be a conversation one wants to have in public."
Dr. Fuji seemed confused but simply agreed, saying, "Yes, yes, don't want to disturb the neighbors. Be mindful of your feet; the Nidoran are most likely roaming."
Lance and Ash walked into a Pokémon paradise. The walls within the home had all been knocked down, completely opening up the floor plan. The floor was portioned off into different kinds of terrain: grass, carpet, hardwood, stone, and water all ran through the ground. There seemed to be a tree made of plastic that held baskets currently filled with berries that one of the many Murkrow that fluttered around the room picked at. Lance didn't realize how large the house was until that moment; Ash's shining eyes spoke to his excitement at seeing the space.
Dr. Fuji had been carefully studying Ash the entire time that he and the Dragon Master had entered. "I'm Archibald Fuji, as I'm sure you know if you're here," he said, gesturing the two of them over to a counter of the kitchen built into the stone section of the house. "Please feel free to take a seat, and I can quickly get you a glass of water. I've got nothing stronger to offer to you, I'm afraid, Master Lance."
Lance waved away the offer, graciously accepting a glass that Dr. Fuji proffered. Ash took one too, had one gulp of water, and promptly begged off to dart away and find the Nidoran that Dr. Fuji had mentioned before. The man mentioned someone who might help Ash and the boy immediately ran off to find her.
"So, Dr. Fuji," Lance said, sounding out the name. "Might I assume that you recognize my ward?"
"I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about, Master Lance," Dr. Fuji replied calmly. "All I see is a boy overjoyed at the prospect of meeting a new Pokémon. Nothing too out of the ordinary for children his age."
"I'm not here in any official capacity, Doctor," Lance said. "At least, not quite yet. I have no intent on persecuting you; if what a former colleague of yours tells me is true, you were not strictly responsible for what I believe you are. Unless proven wrong, I will not be pursuing any legal course of action against you. I simply want to know if you know who Ash really is."
Dr. Fuji jerked slightly upon hearing Ash's name, though he was able to quickly cover it up. "Ash," he sounded out. "I never said it out loud myself, I suppose, but I did hear plenty of those higher up in administration calling him such. To me, he was simply another test. Another experiment." Dr. Fuji studied the glass in front of him. "I'm not a good person, Master Lance. When my daughter... well, I couldn't go on, and this was right around the time in which someone within the government's medicine sector discovered Ditto. With such a creature, any Pokémon could be duplicated, they hypothesized. What makes us humans so different from Pokémon? In the long run, it's only a handful of DNA pairs that differs us from nanab berries. It shouldn't be difficult. I obsessed over this hypothesis, and I became convinced that I could bring Amber back to me."
Lance dared not to speak, to interrupt the man.
"At one point, my wife told me that I couldn't do it, that she couldn't watch me do it. She didn't want to have her hopes raised only to be dashed, she said, and that I forced myself through the pain of losing our child over and over again worried her. I thought once that she would leave me. She nearly did when, one day, a mysterious benefactor contacted me.
"He was a businessman, he claimed. He was curious about unlocking the mystery of life, and he was willing to provide me all of the funds and resources I thought I needed if I would extend my experimentation with Ditto into an ancient DNA sample that he had. He didn't know what creature it was, he told me, and he wanted to see it in the flesh. I thought the task impossible and thus the job stable and lucrative and immediately took it. I told my benefactor that I would first clone Amber with his money so as to not ruin his limited DNA stores. He agreed readily. He just wanted his product.
"Finally, I did it, or so I thought. I could see my little girl in front of me, asleep standing up, and she was beautiful, just as she had been. One of my scientists, a man from Pallet Town who had studied under Professor Samuel Oak, had the idea of connecting her life source to a Pokémon sensitive to such energies. He spoke of his heritage and affirmed that it was possible." Dr. Fuji stared into his glass. "I'm ashamed of how far I went now. At the time, I imagined that my daughter would simply be connected to the Pokémon as her partner, a connection that went so deep that it tied the two together infallibly. It was to be a fail-safe.
"It was rather obvious to me that my benefactor wanted me to clone a Pokémon, one to serve him. The amount of purview he wielded was... shocking, to be honest. He had four executives checking in on me on a monthly basis to ensure that work was going well enough, but he himself would never visit the laboratory. He wanted to see the final product, not bore himself with the in-between stages. I never questioned it; I just wanted my funding so that I could have my daughter."
A Rattata ran up to Dr. Fuji, nuzzling at his legs. Sighing, the man patted around his pockets and found an oran berry to hand to the scavenging Pokémon. "Melanie is usually quicker to catch one of the runaways. I apologize."
"Not a problem at all," Lance said. "What sort of Pokémon were you asked to create?"
"Not one I recognized, I can tell you that," Dr. Fuji said, relaxing into his chair as best as he could now. "And the sample was incomplete, as well. Not degraded or anything, just not something that I could have duplicated. It eluded us for years. Somehow, it transformed before our very eyes, and our results on one day would be worthless to us the next. Frustrating, I can tell you.
"Blaine finally cracked it one day, though."
"Blaine did?" Lance asked.
Dr. Fuji nodded gravely. "Brilliant man he is and was, he came up with the idea of not just building a fetus but acquiring a mother for it and having it birthed. I can't remember what other species of Pokémon we defiled for our causes, but soon we had a fragile, new child.
"Our benefactor returned immediately upon hearing of our success. At first, he was greatly displeased of what he perceived to be our failure. We did not duplicate the Pokémon he wanted; we had created a new species altogether, one that he did not recognize. He nearly had my throat torn out by a massive Persian that accompanied him until, again, Blaine stepped in. He had greeted the man with some congeniality, though I cannot remember his name, and seemed shocked that he would go so far as to threaten a life. We had plans to stabilize our new life-form in the same way that I had stabilized Amber, and perhaps it would take that additional step to have the DNA manifest.
"That worked. I don't know how it did, but the Persian stopped suffocating me and the man seemed pleased. He stepped away and instructed us to provide him a Trainer for his creation. A human who could stand beside this Pokémon as its equal."
Lance heard Ash cry out in excitement before squeaking out in Pokéspeech.
"At this point, I didn't care who this man was. I wanted to be done with the project so I could bring Amber home to my wife. The scientist who first proposed tying a Pokémon to a human's life, Matthias, I believe, provided his and his wife's DNA for the experiment. We were able to build a stable egg that hosted their samples and slowly built what was meant to be 'the perfect Trainer'. He was a dark-haired boy with strange marks on his cheeks, an effect of the way he was conceived, we hypothesized. And we tied him to the creature that already began to grow as soon as their link was created.
"We nurtured the two of them for months, years. My wife diligently stuck through it all; we had an older daughter, one who did not perish in the accident that claimed my Amber, and my dear wife devoted herself to raising her. They still live here with me, as well as the strays that we have opened our doors to. Meanwhile, I was playing god to children and Pokémon trials that we had undergone to ensure that our DNA replication process was foolproof.
"When the boy was around three, we decided to wake him and the others up."
Dr. Fuji's hands started shaking, and he gingerly placed the glass down. "Most of our tests dissolved away. I can't explain to you why it could have happened. The pressure was off, one calculation misread, one chemical added where it shouldn't have been. I don't know. A good half of our creations dissolved away, and of the remaining half, only a handful ever gained consciousness. I watched my little girl die for a second time, right in front of my eyes. And that's when I finally broke. I couldn't do it again. I couldn't try and make Amber manifest only for it to catastrophically fail. Our benefactor whisked away our other creations, forcing their compliance with his Nidoking, Nidoqueen, and Rhyperior, and promptly dismissed all of us. I came back to Lavender Town, to my knowing wife who helped me grieve one final time, and raised my daughter to love and cherish every Pokémon that has wandered through our doors. That was almost five years ago now. I never saw that businessman again, and I hope I never will."
Lance nodded slowly, examining his now empty water glass. He opened his mouth to ask another question when Ash burst in, tailed closely by a Bulbasaur, an older teenager following after them both.
"Lance! Lance! Bulbasaur wants to come with us! Can he? Can he?!"
Lance sighed deeply, all too grateful for the chance to slide back into Ash's much simpler world, free of the baggage of moral dilemma and scientific inquiry. "As long as Bulbasaur is okay with it, I don't see why not. You're in charge of making sure the others get along with him, though."
Ash nodded fervently, his eyes shining. He turned to Bulbasaur and began to excitedly coo at him in Pokéspeech. The squat Pokémon looked upon him with adoration already in his eyes.
"I'm so sorry, Father, I tried to warn him that you might be busy with your other guest," the harried-looking teenager said, glancing at Lance in awe and apology.
"It's no problem," Lance said. "I just hope that he wasn't too big of a hassle."
"Oh, not at all! The little ones love him," she said. "I've never seen them so excited to see a human. I've also never seen a human actually communicate to Pokémon. That was a bit surprising."
"Our visitors are special, Melanie," Dr. Fuji said. "Is there anything else you need from us, Master Lance?"
Lance thought for a second. "If the name of that man eludes you, then I can't think of anything in particular. Again, I don't intend to persecute you for anything we have spoken of, though that investor may need to be tracked down if possible."
"But of course." Dr. Fuji stood up. "Feel free to come by whenever you feel the urge. I'd imagine that Bulbasaur would welcome the chance to visit his friends here again."
Immediately upon returning to the League building, Ash and Bulbasaur ran off to introduce the latter to the rest of Ash's party. Lance had to shout after them to remind Ash to formally capture the Seed Pokémon, though whether or not the boy heard him was a different question altogether.
A few details about Dr. Fuji's story had bothered Lance immensely. Blaine had described Dr. Fuji as borderline psychopathic, a monster who was willing to do whatever it took to come up with results. The man that Blaine remembered was far off from the man that Lance had met, the one who had completely remodeled his home to better suit the strays that he had welcomed in. It could have been that Blaine had only seen the horrific side of Dr. Fuji, but Lance had a suspicion that the same figure that had forced a mental block onto Blaine might have inflicted one on the doctor, erasing truly unconscionable aspects of his decisions to perhaps protect him or someone else. There were few people who could have unlimited access to such powerful psychics outside of the Masters, and Lance couldn't think of any who would also feel interested in genetic research. Even if he were to consider the Masters, who would want to fund such a project, and who would have the resources for it?
Lance pulled out a sheet of paper and slowly wrote down the names of his colleagues. Brock and Yellow were immediately out; they were far too young. Dr. Fuji had described a man, which eliminated Daisy, Green, Sabrina... Lance felt like he was staring at another at his desk slashing harsh lines through names on a sheet of paper as excuses piled up. Some Masters joined after the timeline given, and the ones who had been replaced had been working on their own projects. Most Masters didn't have the financial capacity to support an independent experiment for months-going-on-years. He was left staring at just one name, the only man who commanded a Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Rhyperior, and Persian all at once. A man who came from what was rumored to be blood money. A man that he had been told by his predecessor he could trust with secrets and thoughts, a man tied into the core essence of the organization that Lance now led.
A man currently being possibly ousted from the one position in which Lance could have approached him without being suspicious.
Someone knocked on Lance's door. He quickly crumpled the sheet of paper, tossed it into a random drawer, and called for his visitor to enter. Blue swaggered in, all pride and thrill.
"I finally did it!" he crowed without prompting.
"You did what, exactly?"
Blue snorted, throwing himself into one of Lance's chairs. "C'mon Lance, stop acting dumb. I straight up flew through all of the trials that the League set before me and have proven myself to the powers that be." His nose wrinkled slightly. "Wish I didn't pass the last test on a technicality, but that's what happens when the old Master doesn't show up, I guess."
"Sorry, the old Master didn't show up?"
"Yeah, ol' Giovanni never made it in. Wonder what's up with the guy, seemed pretty out of character. Whatever, he cleared out his gym already for me before he disappeared, and it's Blue time now, baby! You're looking at Kanto's newest Ground Master! I can't wait to shove it into Green's face; she can't say anything about being superior to me now."
Lance's mind was so discombobulated that he didn't even think to tease Blue on his priorities. "Giovanni's gone?"
"Yeah," Blue shrugged. "Weird, isn't it? He's usually so meticulous about everything. Wonder where he went."
Lance thought of the balled-up list in his pocket and the boy down the hall. A lump formed in his throat and a pit in his stomach. "I do too," he choked out.
I know Gary's starter was technically a Squirtle, I just decided that was boring. For those curious: yes, I adapted some VGC rules to "match" rules. I enjoy watching the World Championships whenever it's time for them to roll around, and I try to keep up with the current meta as much as possible, so hopefully the clauses I've mentioned here make sense/still apply. Double battles aren't necessarily a thing here, though; no pesky built-in video game mechanics to demand that a move works the same way every time here. Also, there's a reference to 2014 VGC Masters World Champion Sejun Park, mostly because I was trying to find a Masters World's team that didn't have a legendary and his was the most recent. Never forget Pachirisu.