To a boy raised in an isolated clan compound, Goldenrod had always seemed a jewel. The lights, the sounds, the people! It was addictive beyond belief.

Now it felt like an entrance to the underworld.

He stood a head taller than most, and his every step was marked by the drifting of the Champion's Mantle across the cobbled path.

Passersby gawked. Trainers practically foamed at the mouth—heh, he still had it! Of course, the great golden dragon striding beside him might have something to do with that.

Lance finally reached his destination and ducked into the apartment complex, feeling distinctly cramped. A receptionist had his feet kicked up over the front desk, the picture of indolence as he flipped through the pages of a steamy romance book.

He'd once caught Karen reading the same thing when she hadn't been expecting him, even if his favorite Dark Master practically kicked him out of her room after bristling like an angry Persian.

"Hello there!" Lance said softly. For him, anyways. Dragonite gave him that look he always did when Lance was a little exuberant.

"Gah!" The receptionist fumbled with his book before stowing it beneath the desk, although Lance could still catch sight of the cover, which portrayed a slender shirtless man with silver hair and an eerily familiar face. Oh, Steven was going to love this! Claydol would, at any rate. Lance waited patiently as the receptionist gawked at him, the man's face pale as the Ice Path's snowy fields. "I—guh, whuh?"

"Take your time," Lance said pleasantly. He was almost relieved for the break. Every second wasted here meant one second not talking to her. Even Agatha—by the First, he missed that acidic old hag!—hadn't left him this anxious. Fire's embers burned on his wrist, carefully hidden beneath his cloak, and he welcomed the warmth. The surety. The resolve.

"Champion Lance!" The receptionist squealed, his blue eyes wide as saucers. Lance was worried for a moment that he might faint, but the boy finally cleared his throat and squeaked out something intelligible. "How can I help you today, sir?"

"I have business here. Can you point me in the direction of Apartment #201?"

Confusion passed over the receptionist's face. "Miss Delia? Oh!" Realization flashed. "Miss Ketchum. Absolutely, Champion."

The security door clicked open, and Lance sighed as he had to return Dragonite. He needed his warmth at his side now more than ever.

A thought crossed his mind, enough to almost make him snort despite his somber mood. Lance scanned the receptionist's name tag. "Can I count on your discretion, Alan?"

"My lips are sealed!" The receptionist mimed zipping his mouth shut, but Lance wasn't entirely convinced. He hoped his dour face might convince the man that this was entirely not what his romance-infested brain surely insisted, but Lance doubted it. The Indigo Champion visiting the mother of his protege, who had been swept up in mysterious circumstances to join the League as its youngest Elite Four member?

The stories practically wrote themselves.

Delia Ketchum was a lovely woman, and every word he'd heard only verified her nature as the loving, steadfast saint that Ash was so happy to talk about. And so did the dressing down she'd given him in Greenfield, Lance guiltily recalled.

Anyone who could raise Ash Ketchum was a figure worthy of legend in Lance's eyes, but he wasn't opening that box even if Steven threatened to share every embarrassing story he had on Lance.

He missed Lorelei terribly in that moment, but shook off those wistful regrets as he approached the door.

#201.

Lance raised his hand to knock, hesitated, and then filled himself with the dragonfire that had urged him to such heights. He had fought a thousand battles! What was one more?

Those thoughts got him to knock—rap, rap, rap—and Lance straightened his back as a cheerful voice called back (and twisted a knife in his gut, knowing that he was here to extinguish the good mood of a woman who had suffered enough) and he heard the patter of feet toward the door.

His stomach tied itself into knots as the door creaked open and revealed a small, smiling woman with a textbook slung under one arm.

"Sorry, sorry, Spencer! I wasn't expecting you this early. I didn't think your meeting would end so—"

She had Ash's eyes, Lance realized. They were warmer, softer, more open...but after an initial jolt of surprise, they shifted to remind Lance far too much of his student's battle-struck gaze. The smile was gone. Delia Ketchum looked as if she was dissecting him, opening him up layer by layer to peer into his deepest recesses.

Now that was a look that Lance knew all too well.

It was almost comforting. He'd thought Ash inherited his aptitude for battle—that little streak of brutality and pragmatism that made him so effective—from whoever his father was (Ash hadn't offered, and Lance wouldn't bring up a sore topic if Ash wasn't ready) but perhaps Delia had passed down a bit of her own steel.

"What happened."

Delia stepped aside, and Lance took the signal. He stepped through the tiny door (he had to dip his head to avoid bumping it on the doorframe) and paused just a moment to take in the scene.

Tiny. One main room which combined a small kitchen area full of well-loved pots and pans, a cozy living space that was dressed up as much as a university apartment could be, and a nice dining table that sat in a corner. She'd done well with the place, and somehow it fit the woman stalking up behind him.

Pictures, quotes, and newspaper clippings adorned almost every free inch of wall space, and even stacked up in great piles on a few tables and desks that Delia had somehow managed to squeeze in. Most were of herself, and Lance traced them idly—they were almost a timeline, he realized, tracking Delia's growth from a cheerful girl with a gap-toothed smile and loose brown hair to a young woman in flannel standing proudly next to Professor Oak to countless pictures of an older Delia with a tiny Ash cradled in her arms.

He wondered if the layout had anything to do with her treatment. Ash had confided his worries to Lance, and he'd done his part to ensure that Delia had every possible specialist on her case. There wasn't much that Lance could personally devote his time to these days, but it gave him great pleasure to use his power to help.

A hammer could be used for more than destruction, after all.

Lance smiled and almost reached out to brush one as affection surged within him, but thought better of it. So many pictures of Ash, though! It offered a rare window into his protege, and Lance was fascinated to watch him grow up from a tiny, grinning boy paired with Gary Oak—oh, how Lance loved the look on the arrogant boy's face when he poked fun at the boy who reminded him far too much of himself at that age—to a picture of Ash departing Pallet with a little pink Nidoran at his side, to countless articles recounting Ash's victories and a dozen other little images that depicted her love for her son.

All that joy turned to ash in Lance's mouth.

Lance turned to face Delia as she crashed onto her couch. He remembered his duty.

"Before anything else, know that Ash is safe and mostly unharmed—" and that one sentence somehow sent Delia into a state of relief muddled by a brewing storm. "—and is currently under guard in Ever Grande City's medical facilities with his team. They're battered, but alive. We haven't had a chance to seriously interview him yet, but there are preliminary reports. Here."

He passed a folder with the edited report (a fair portion was blacked out) to her, but she didn't flip it open. Ash's eyes bored into him like a Hyper Beam and it took all Lance had not to look away. Lance desperately wanted to apologize to her—for bringing Ash into this mess, for sending him down to Hoenn which had proven to be an utter shitshow, for everything—but what right did he have?

Hell, how did she make him feel like a young boy being scolded by his grandfather again? Lance thought he'd escaped from that sort of reproach.

"You're the one who came all this way to tell me the news. You are not dumping a report on me and calling it a day, is that understood?" Delia's icy voice whipped against him like a lash. "Now sit down, Champion Lance, and tell me what happened to my son."

Lance collapsed into a rather comfortable recliner. He scratched his cheek, wishing he could just sleep and let this day pass on by.

But no, he'd sacrificed such luxuries when he accepted the Champion's Mantle at sixteen. What a fool he was...

"Understand that we have few details at the moment. Only what the party who retrieved Ash and ferried him to Ever Grande had to say. We have a brief recount from Ash himself, but the Ever Grande League wanted him to rest before requesting that he fill out a report and expand on his experiences. He's being treated for a laceration on his left arm, but is otherwise just rattled. And exhausted."

Delia's lips pressed into a thin line. No doubt she had a thousand questions waiting on the tip of her tongue, and probably a few barbed comments as well. Lance would accept each and every one.

It might even make him feel better about this mess.

And he had all sorts of frustrations to work out when he went back down to Hoenn as soon as this was done… Lance sighed, feeling much older than his twenty eight years. Twelve years with this damn cape on his back.

"Let me tell you the rest..."