*NOTE: This chapter has a song from the "soundtrack" featured in it! As this site does not allow links, to listen along with the story, please copy/paste the below code into a new Google search tab and it will be the first video that pops up. When you see the three stars in the chapter (***), that is the signal to hit play! Also important to note: Please slow the playback speed down on the video to .75 for best results! It sounds better slow!

The copy/paste code to the song, titled on YouTube as "Lavender Town (POKÉMON HeartGold & SoulSilver)" by Moisés Nieto, is this: "watch?v=sKLnTTfpVNU"

...

Maya and Kadabra waited in their seats as they silently watched the rest of the stadium clear out. She played it over again in her head as she studied the new grooves in the icy field below; her heart was still recovering. What an amazing match.

"Hey Maya," a voice called from behind her.

She turned to find Lorelei, clearing out from her seat in the nearby row. "Good to see you again."

"Good to see you too," Maya replied with a genuine smile.

"The view's different from up close, isn't it?" Lorelei asked playfully. Maya smiled bashfully, not sure if she was only talking about these incredible front-row seats. She had seen a lot of things up-close recently.

"It was incredible." She said with a grin, "I'm glad I had Kadabra to grab onto when everything started to shake."

"Dabra."

Lorelei began walking toward the exit row, where Erika was waiting for her near the top of the stairs.

"You can wait here if you want, I'm sure he'll be back out on the field soon." She said, before turning back to the stairwell, "Hope to see you again."

"Thanks." Maya waved goodbye, before she felt another set of eyes cast down upon her.

It was Agatha of the Elite Four, who was now inspecting her with... suspicion? Disgust? It was hard to read the soft scowl over her face. Maya smiled softly in an attempt to disarm her.

Agatha's eyes then turned to Kadabra, where her gaze grew serious. She drew closer to it, inspecting its long, golden snout & its curling whiskers that hung down like blonde little branches from its nose. Kadabra stared back, unfazed.

Agatha then pulled away, glancing over to Maya again.

"I like that one." She said sharply. And with that, she meandered off down the empty row of seats, her cane kicking out in front of her, slowly following Lorelei to ascend the staircase together. Maya sighed in relief; Agatha's ghosts probably steamrolled a fleet of psychic-type pokemon every week at her post at the Indigo Plato. So she could only guess that was a high compliment, coming from her.

Before long, the stadium was truly empty. Maya and Kadabra were the only ones left in the jarring silence of the once-thundering arena.

Maya's eyes peered down to the arena's floor once again, noting the ice crystals still painted over the mountainous rind where Onix had burrowed its tunnels.

"How cold do you think it is?" Maya posed to Kadabra. Kadabra shrugged. She turned to her ace, flashing a smile with the shared thought that Kadabra could sense: let's go find out.

In a blinding FLASH, Kadabra enveloped her in its teleporting light...

...And they suddenly reappeared again, feet landing on the uneven icy ground inside the massive pitch of the empty stadium.

Walking a few careful steps out toward the center, they peered around at the towering rows of vacant seats surrounding them, seemingly endless as they cast up way into the nosebleeds of the stadium. Even at its emptiest, it was incredibly intimidating to be on this stage at all. She sighed at the extraordinary view, one that had only been seen by the most accomplished of Kanto's trainers, and found herself suddenly surprised at the sight of her own breath as it cast out in the new frosty air.

Maya stopped and kneeled down to the icy turf, reaching out to grab a handful of the Blizzard's snow caked over the terrain. It was built up hard and crunchy; not at all like the seasonal Viridian flurries that she use to look forward to every winter, with which she would use to build Abomasnow-men in her parent's backyard. She couldn't even squeeze it in her hand, it was so tough. She now understood why Bruno's frozen Onix was left thrashing about; to imagine this bitter cold ice lodged between the joints of her knees and her elbows...

"Enjoy the show?"

Maya turned around to find Lance, who had entered the stadium as silent as a stalking pride of Pyroar. His Dragonite flew alongside him, still bruised but glowing with confidence. His sparkling, silver eyes locked with hers in a new pride as she spoke.

"I really did," She began softly, "You were incredible. Both of you."

She paused, her eyes shining with the memory. He held in his boastful grin behind a subtle little nod.

"Thank you for the tickets," she went on, "It's been a long time since I've watched a battle like that up close... I'm usually hiding out in the control room for all the good fights."

He nodded with the thought.

"I'm glad you didn't have to hide anywhere." He began, "And thank you. I'm quite proud of Dragonite's performance. I realized that the last time you, or anyone saw me battle, it was... A disappointment."

Maya watched him as that last word hung over them. She couldn't disagree more.

"Win or lose," Maya said playfully, "You really had the crowd in the palm of your hand. Everyone was excited just to get a glimpse of you from up in the nosebleeds."

Maya paused; this applied to her as well.

"It's amazing that you can even focus," Maya continued, peering around again at all the empty seats, "With everyone watching. Thousands of people, literally looking down on you, watching your every move. It sounds kinda terrifying... so many eyes."

Lance crossed his arms with confidence.

"Dragonite and I can tune out the eyes," His gaze caught hers again, "Most of them, that is."

A bit of heat rose to her cheeks, along with a tiny smile.

BA-BOOOOM!

A roll of THUNDER suddenly called out from the sky; a bought of black clouds had accumulated over the stadium in only the last ten minutes. Lance's brow furrowed with a suspicious curiosity.

Kadabra held out its claw to feel the drizzle, tiny drops of rain beginning to fall now. It was a good thing the crowd had already left.

"These storms," Lance began, "They're not normal. I've been trying to do some research of my own about why they're happening."

"Oh yeah?" Maya asked, "Have you found anything out? The Saffron's been running stories about them. The writers thought it was just climate change at first, but they really are strange."

"This is part of the reason I wanted you to come here today," Lance's eyes turned from the sky back over to her, "I think I could use your help."

. . .

The Elite Four Estate was situated just a mile north of the Indigo Plato, a sprawling protected property situated on a large plot of the mountainside that overlooked the winding caves below. It was a stately mansion manor of four interconnected living quarters, one house for every member of the Elite Four to train, practice, study, meditate & live with their pokémon during the times when challengers would flood the gates of the League. It was a gorgeous property, with towering stone columns boasting classic Kantonian architecture, & curious marble statues of Dragonair & Gengar arching along the winding paths of the grounds. It was usually blooming with green lush trees, towering hedges and well-groomed royal gardens, but today, the grey of the rain had layered it all in a dreary fog.

Maya was still so taken by the sight of it; she had seen the Estate house in the photo archive at work, but never imagined how beautiful it could be in person.

Lance had flown them there just before the rain began to downpour, so when they walked into the main door of Lance's Estate house, they didn't find themselves too soaked.

The splendid foyer of the mansion was just as elegant as the grounds out front, dotted with royal-looking furniture below the toweringly high stonecast ceilings. Even when Kadabra re-emerged from its pokeball, it took a moment to soak in the room.

"I'll give you a little tour afterward, if you like." He said, leading them away from the vestibule. He often forgot just how stunning the Estate must seem to unfamiliar eyes, though he never took it for granted.

Lance lead the way down a long, carpeted hallway, lined with extravagantly framed Kantonian landscape paintings mounted on either side. In one unique piece, Kadabra's eyes stopped to admire a watercolor of the calming blue rivers of Cerulean City as it flowed down the valley, as blue and cheerful as an Azumarill's smile. And another just beside it, of the Pewter countryside, its rocky mountain landscape peaking in the background beneath a setting sun

They passed through a Parlor room, its marble floors immaculate and white, lined with tall windows and double bay doors that peered out to the Estate's main garden. Just beside the doors sat an extraordinarily handsome grand piano, now bathed in the grey light of the window's rain, a violet velveteen bench stool tucked beneath the keys.

Further on they pressed down the hall, passing a closed door on the right hand side. Maya eyed it curiously; it boasted a hanging golden plaque with the etching of a curling beast lined into it, the official symbol of his Dragon Clan.

Finally, near the end of the massive corridor, the trio turned into a new room filled with computer towers and monitors. It was a small security center of some kind, and very much reminded Maya of the control room at Wyndon Stadium.

Lance approached one of the touch-screens and tapped on it swiftly, pulling up a giant weather radar map on the screen that covered all of Kanto. From this birds-eye view of the map, lines of rolling green and yellow alerts scoured over the region, from the peaks of Mt. Moon to the southern Cinnabar boundaries.

Maya didn't quite know what she was looking at; in fact, she was a little taken aback by all of this security equipment. Why would he need such intense surveillance of Kanto?

Peering back to the main monitor, she spotted a tiny image in the corner of the screen: a bold, black letter "G".

She suddenly remembered; Lance was a member of the Pokémon G-Men, the secretive government agency that was steeped in either mystery or controversy, depending on who you ask. While the G-Men were known for seemingly heroic undercover missions in the name of Pokémon safety, rumors always swirled that they must surely also be the hands controlling the puppet-strings of Kantonian culture. As the Kantonian "Deep-State", as some called them, some thought that the G-Men controlled the power dynamics of every politician & Gym leader in the country, and that they even had the power to rig elections in their favor. Some even believed that they had influence over the rarity of certain pokémon & could control their populations through environmental regulations, not to mention even more sinister (and conspiratorial) accusations involving the G-Men being the true founders of Team Rocket. Maya even heard odd rumors that they controlled which celebrity trainers & coordinators became famous & what they were allowed to say.

Though Maya wasn't much of a conspiracy theorist; she knew that Lance's work with the G-Men (at least, she thought, the things that were declassified enough for the Times to report on), were all honorable missions involving rescuing endangered or troubled pokémon.

Still, she couldn't help but wonder about this other side of him... Lance, the Spy.

"Do you see these red lines of storms?" Lance zoomed into a cluster over the Seafoam Islands, where red bands of angry blinking lights took over the area, seemingly focused on one island in particular. "I've noticed that some of the storms that form over the southern cities seem to originate over this islet in the Seafoam Islands. They form here, and then move north over Kanto."

He pulled up another image: a grey satellite photo of the island itself. It was fuzzy with haze from the storms. But Maya could see small, circular white dots over the island.

"See these white marks? These are all tornados." Lance crossed his arms, "This region has never experienced this type of violent weather. They've certainly never had any bands of storms like these."

"What do you think could be causing this?" Maya asked, her eyes following the trail of dots as they lined the island. "Is it a pokémon?"

"I have a few theories," His voice grew serious, "But the only way to find out for sure is to go to the island, and get some readings in-person. I've tried sending Rotom drones, but the winds are just too strong. I really need to get inside these storms to see what's going on."

Maya thought about this, curiously.

"Inside the storm," Maya repeated, her eyes still glued to the screen. "I'm not sure how I could help you."

"Well," he began, his face grown stoic again, "Dragonite can get me to the Island itself. But I've been trying to think of a way to get past the winds and get footage of these tornados, and take new readings as close to them as possible. I think it would work if I had a cameraman who could bypass the winds, and teleport right into the heart of the storm."

He looked to Kadabra. Maya's brows raised high.

"Kadabra." Maya slowly said, a curiosity dawning over her. Kadabra would be able to do it, she thought to herself. Kadabra was fast enough to handle anything.

"Dabra?" Kadabra turned to her, before peering over to Lance.

"What do you think?" Maya asked her ace, a new seriousness in her voice. "Do you think you'd be able to handle it?"

Kadabra's eyes moved from Maya back to the monitor, its eyes studying the storms on the screen carefully.

"Kadabra," Lance's voice grew softer now, his words lined with respect, "I would never ask anything of you that I wouldn't ask of myself, or my own Pokémon. You don't have to do this, if you don't want to."

Kadabra glanced back to Maya; and she tried as hard as she could to blank out her mind, to let it fade to white, as to not influence her psychic friend's decision. It was difficult at times for Kadabra to not simply agree with any of Maya's ideas, because it loved so much to see her be happy. But Maya knew this; and the last thing she ever wanted to do was influence Kadabra's decisions with any unsuspecting thoughts of excitement, or worry, or danger.

Kadabra glanced back to Lance, tipping up its spoon in a sign of respect.

"Ka-Dabra. Kadabra!"

. . .

Emerging back into the great hall of the Estate with a readied plan to depart the next day, Lance lead them back out toward the marbled floor of the Parlor room. Her eyes scanned the enormous wrap-around windows, now peppered with drops of streaking rainwater, and the elegant ivory organza curtains that towered down from them, arcing over the tops of each one like the wooly white mane around an Absol's chest.

"You live here, year round?" She asked, peering about at the fancy room. Kadabra found a comfortable spot by one of the windows, taking its relaxed lotus position just a few feet above the floor.

"Most of the year," Lance replied, crossing his arms, "When I'm not traveling."

Her eyes spotted the piano again, an exquisite sculpture of its own, alone beneath the furthest window. She approached it slowly with a thoughtful smile, admiring its rich black-lacquered coat, its keys lined in a tiny layer of dust.

"Do you play?" She asked, turning her eyes from the keys to meet his own. He too turned to the piano, nodding his head softly.

"I'm not as good as my Father was," he said carefully, "But he taught me the basics."

Her cerulean eyes lit up at the words. In the grey mist of the window's view, they were by far the bluest things in the room.

She slowly approached the velvet bench beneath the keys, gently taking a seat at its very end. Her voice fell to just above a whisper as she locked eyes with him once more.

"Play me something."

He looked over the piano again softly, her calm commandment lingering in the air.

Maya could see a hint of something fall over him; it wasn't quite sadness. But it was something.

But when his gaze turned back to Maya, her cerulean eyes shining earnestly beneath the cast of the window's storm, he couldn't help but find his tiny grin again. He nodded and slowly approached the bench, his black cape gently flowing behind him.

He sat on the bench beside her, looking down thoughtfully over the line of keys.

It had been a long, long time.

Maya held her breath; but her heart did not pound, or ache as it did before. She relished in this moment, in this comfortable feeling beside him.

His hands rose to the ivories gently, slowly, his fingers spreading wide. He drew in a quiet, deep breath, the cold tile of the keys conjuring the memories of a song beneath his touch. His shoulders squared, channeling this weight of the world down in the tiniest, most tender press...

And he began to play. (***)

Slow, sad, and soulful was the melody; it trailed on in a mysterious aura, walking up the keys, the minor notes highlighting a hopeful, yet mourning little tune.

Maya listened on, carefully studying the creases in his face as they basked beneath the Parlor lights, his silver eyes now closing with a memory, the sounds of the storm behind the glass fading away with the gentle passion of his song.

It was beautiful.

Something about the tune felt quite familiar as he played on; for some reason, it strangely reminded Maya of her and Kadabra's occasional excursions to the Rock Tunnel caverns, where they would sometimes hike at the height of brutal summers. The mysterious caves went deep beneath the ground, and made for a perfect cool hideaway from the heat of the day.

For a moment, Maya almost couldn't believe it; that the player of this tender little song, and the fiery performer who had froze over Indigo Stadium just hours before could possibly be the same man.

With the last pang of notes, the song ended; his hands paused above the pearly keys and his eyes slowly opened again. He peered over the ivories, and then over to her, a wondrous look in her eyes.

"Beautiful." She whispered. He smiled at her words. "So beautiful. It sounded, kind of familiar."

He nodded knowingly.

"It's another one of my Father's," he hushed back to her softly, "You may have heard it before. He wrote this one for the Mayor of Lavender Town, when he had asked him for a new official song to represent the city. He told my Father that the old song was so ghastly that it was scaring away all the tourists." He smiled with the memory. "If you've ever spent any time around the Lavender Gardens near the Pokémon Tower. They play it there all the time."

Maya nodded with the thought; She and Kadabra would often walk down to Lavender's town square after hiking through the Rock Tunnel for a well-deserved rest. Perhaps that's why the memory of it had so clearly passed through her.

She looked to Lance again, a pressing thought coming over her. He must hear his Father's music everywhere.

"Thank you," She hushed, "You play beautifully."

His tiny smile appeared again, nearly washing away the subtle grey gloom that had fallen over him with the song. He reached his hand over to clasp upon her own where it sat at the lip of the piano, before squeezing it delicately, stroking it carefully beneath his thumb.

Their eyes met again, the pressure cresting back now in Maya's chest.

Even this gentle, grazing touch was quietly electrifying.

And the faintest flicker of this fire in his eyes; She knew he could feel it, too.