He never felt quite as at home as he did while battling wild, shifting air currents and mighty gales from one of his family's backs. The sky was where he belonged, free and open and above the concerns of the rest of the world. Up here nothing could bother him. It was just him and his partner.

Or it had been.

Worldly concerns had begun to haunt him a bit more as of late.

Lance gnashed his teeth and clung tight to Saph as she propelled them across Kanto's skies with lazy beats of her outstretched wings. Her form was glorious indeed as the sunlight reflected off her golden scales. In the old days such a spectacular example of a Dragonite would have had song after song composed in her honor.

Those days were long past, unfortunately. Maybe he'd try his hand at writing something up for her, even if the attempt would probably embarrass them both. Saph would be flattered, though, and Lance thought she'd more than earned any accolades he could offer.

Maybe he could make up some new award for her? Being the Champion could be a thankless job - especially in times like these - but it had a few perks.

'The Sapphire Star'? That had a nice ring to it.

He idly noted the little tinges of blue had finally begun to fade from her scales as she matured and came into her own as a Dragonite. Lance rubbed at one of her scales which was knocked ever so slightly ajar and eventually worked it free. Saph had been itching at that spot for the last day or so; the scale must have been knocked ascance during one of their training bouts with Ash's team.

Lance hoped he enjoyed his time in Hoenn. Indigo Plateau had been good for the kid, but Ash needed sunlight and freedom and new things to see. It was too early for him to worry about being locked down. There was more to life than just training and growing stronger. New lands, new people, new sights… all part of growing up and learning who you are.

If only Lance had known that at Ash's age.

Bitter thoughts didn't suit him, Lance decided, and he'd had too many lately. The damn Feather offered plenty of its own heat, but left him empty and cold and dark once he let the power go. It wasn't a habit he wanted to get into. That road would lead to true Stevendom, which was something he'd sworn to avoid.

It was already hard to drag himself out of bed in the mornings.

He peered down at the distant waves rolling below, lapping at occasional rocky islands off the coast, and rubbed at his wrist. The Feather was mostly lifeless, smoldering like the cinders of a doused campfire as it had ever since Ash did that thing to his Feather. Lance knew too well that the power was still there, able to be stoked the moment he called on it, but he had to embrace the relief while he could.

That didn't make him feel much better about the whole situation, though.

Ignoring his own failures (and there were plenty), ignoring the absolute shitshow the League was dealing with, ignoring that awful hollow pit in his spirit as he threw his soul into Fire like tinder, he was stuck with a pretty crappy feeling about Ash.

His determined little student was growing into a giant.

Oh, it would be another few years before Ash's team took him down and took the Champion's Mantle off his shoulders, unfortunately. Sooner than he would've expected, though…

No, what troubled him was the other stuff.

The things even Lance couldn't understand.

The way Ash could look at them with those intense brown eyes (old eyes, Lance thought) and uncover every stray thought and feeling. How the kid - no, not a kid, not really - could flip from his normal self to an icy calm or laser-like focus in a heartbeat. Nobody Ash's age should know so much. It was like he was half twelve-year-old and half ancient sage.

Lance loved Ash, but he scared the shit out of him sometimes.

That familiar guilt weighed heavy on his shoulders. Ash wasn't supposed to be like this; he definitely hadn't been this old man in a boy's body when they'd first met. A little too calm, a little too determined, sure, but what he'd become was unrecognizable.

His hollowed out spirit rose in defiance. His ward might be facing trials that Champion Lance couldn't imagine, but he would come out the other side intact.

Lance would ensure that even if it killed him.

Shit, that got dark. He really was turning into a Steven.

He exhaled heavily, imagining all his troubles flooding out through his breath. It was a little comforting, and soon enough he was shaking his head at what a drama queen he was.

Get a grip, Lance. He was a Champion, not a movie star.

Not that he would mind that. Maybe once Ash took the throne from him he'd take that for a spin. Apparently some Unovan studio had tried getting Sabrina to work with them on some project or another - he couldn't imagine the stoic, detached woman taking them up on it, but maybe even psychics needed a hobby.

Why wouldn't they be chasing after his dashing good looks, stellar reputation, and fantastic hair? Besides, he had dragons. Who didn't love dragons? Maybe he could even get a sequel to Dragon Trainer made.

That sounded awesome.

That train of thought distracted him for a long while and he entertained a few idle fancies as Saph tore through the skies on the way to their destination. He barely paid any heed to the flat grey clouds or pounding white-tipped waves as they shot above the black ocean.

It would've been faster to have his personal teleporter take him to the Seafoam Islands, but Saph could always use an excuse to stretch her wings. They hadn't flown like this in ages and that fact left them both with an itch. Dragonite and Dov were a bit above it all - they'd ferried Lance around all too often in their younger days - but it was still new and exciting for the newest member of the Dragonite trio.

Besides, he needed time to think.

He knew they didn't have much longer. In an hour, maybe less, they'd have settled down on the bleak beaches of the Seafoam Islands. It didn't quite make his list of favorite vacation spots. He'd only stopped by once as a young trainer to hone his team against ice-types, then again as part of the tour he'd done as a newly crowned Indigo Champion.

Lance clutched at his Feather as the altitude and uncharacteristic summer chill - damn Articuno for ruining his favorite season - gnawed at him. It was so tempting to call on his link with Fire to warm himself from the inside out, but Ash's warning rang in his ears.

That was a bad idea on so many levels. If even Chinatsu thought it was dangerous enough to warn Lance about, then he wasn't going to mess around with it. She was no friend to his clan, and Lance would take any odds on her happily seeing him drop dead the moment he lost the Mantle.

If she was willing to interfere, then it was of pressing importance.

Then again, the golden Ninetales' warning was half the reason he was off to the Seafoam Islands in the first place.

The other half was to set a few things straight.

He narrowed his eyes as the murky black shapes of the Seafoam Islands appeared on the distant horizon. With Saph's speed they'd be settling down on them in no time. The Rangers stationed in Seafoam had kept a close eye on this 'prophet' at his personal request, but it would still take him a moment to orient himself in the unfamiliar place and track his target.

Strategies and chains of events dashed through his mind in rapid succession - his weary mind urged him to give it up and rest instead, but he forced that self-destructive thought away. His brain had kept that good habit from his days as a young trainer, at least, and it served him well as Champion. He'd gathered as much information as possible from his Rangers, the League Archives, Ash, Sabrina, and even a risky personal audience with Chinatsu, but he still lacked an estimation of his target's full ability.

That was dangerous, but admittedly left him with a faint fire burning in his chest that had little to do with the Feather on his wrist.

When was the last time he'd faced a real opponent? Not some miserable little Rocket squad or one of his Elite Four or ACE trainers he'd dragged in for a bout, but someone who could match him blow for blow?

He didn't know much of Haukea as a trainer, but she had power. Not the power of a full Legend that would bat him aside like a Persian toying with a Rattata… well, more like a Persian toying with a deathly ill, starving infant Rattata, but certainly enough to pose a challenge.

She had been one of the First's Elite Four members, after all, and the stories he'd heard only left him more eager to throw down with her.

It might not end with a battle at all, but to be honest Lance needed to take out his frustrations on a target who could take it. And if he managed to take out a potential threat to Indigo - to humanity as a whole - then all the better.

Saph roared out a challenge as she circled the Seafoam Islands. She'd slowed to a manageable speed, but her brilliant figure demanded the attention of every human and pokemon around - the villagers ceased their bustling, the Pidgey and Spearow flocks went silent, and a lonely Jynx standing vigil outside the entrance to the Seafoam Caverns stared up silently.

The wind whistled around them in a sudden surge, strong enough to bring Saph's flight nearly to a standstill, and Lance shuddered as the freezing gust pierced his skin through his thin combat outfit. It reminded him of that awful day of battling against Articuno's Blizzard in Shamouti…

"Land there!" He roared above the din to Saph, pointing out the tallest peak of the islands. It was a ragged height, the stone worn and weathered from countless millennia's exposure to the ocean breeze and precipitation, but the stone spire looked sturdy enough to support them easily.

They landed a moment later and Lance dismounted his friend and dismantled the heavy saddle with ease. It had long become instinctual. Saph huffed at the cold sting of another freezing gale, then the irritating patter of ice-cold raindrops landing against her scales, but sucked it up for his sake.

"Thanks for the flight," Lance saluted her. Saph rumbled softly to him, moving over to shield him from the cold flecks of rain pelting him. He shook his head. "No, no. Don't worry about it. We'll be off this rock soon enough. I just need a moment to think," Lance tapped his chin as his cape fluttered impressively around him. "Let's see, if I was an ancient ice witch, where would I want to hang out?"

He thought the obvious answer was the deepest, darkest depths of the Seafoam Caverns. Ash told him that was where Articuno liked to roost, after all. When it wasn't settled atop Mt. Silver and ruining Lance's summer by covering the sky in grey clouds and endless snowfall, anyways.

That would be pretty inconvenient, though. Part of Lance relished the thought of delving into the caverns as if he was a young trainer, overcoming whatever meager challengers might rest within, but that would be an awful waste of time. Those caverns were a labyrinth of maze-like passages, dead ends, and jumbled networks of carved halls.

He'd traversed them before, but had never made it to the deepest depths. Lance's team hadn't been too excited to be trapped beneath a thousand feet of brine and stone. Magnus in particular had been about to throw a tantrum if Lance had tried pressing down into the network's heart.

Knowing what rested within, he thought he might need to thank Magnus for that little hissy fit.

The rain turned to hail, and the tiny little ice crystals began to sting as they bounced off his clothes and the bare skin of his face. His left eye twitched.

This was why he wasn't a fan of the Seafoam Islands.

His instincts were already screaming at him, so Lance went ahead with the next stage of his plan: he released the rest of his team. Well, all except Mael, Lev, and the babies. They would attract too much attention, and the babies just weren't ready for a potential battle on this level.

"Take to the skies," he told them without hesitation. They listened carefully, though Saph remained planted squarely at his side. "Keep as much distance between us as you can. If anything goes wrong…"

His team nodded, and soon enough they were just distant blots against the clouds.

The hail began to hit harder and harder.

After a moment his irritation grew to the point his Feather ignited - Lance couldn't even find it in his worn spirit to regret the flow of heat, warmth, and raw power into his body. He immediately straightened as the fatigue washed off him and his muscles filled with strength and vigor.

It felt good. Why had he ever stopped - oh yeah, the whole 'slowing consuming his soul' thing was a bit of a downside. He'd never hear the end of it from his Elite Four if his team had to drag his comatose body back to the Plateau. Karen would probably call Lorelei, maybe even Agatha…

His mouth twisted into a bitter smile at that. The old crone would probably rush back to Orre just to beat him over the head with that twisted cane of hers.

He shook the distraction off before he could go much further down that dark, depressing road. Instead he embraced Fire wholeheartedly. The hail faded away, melting and fading into normal rain drops that steamed as they landed against his face, and even Saph edged closer to bask in his warmth. She gave him a reproachful look at his use of Fire, but he couldn't care.

"In the village, maybe?" Lance eyed the distant collection of buildings and tents far below the tattered spire they'd landed upon. He embraced all the Fire his connection to Moltres had to offer, tugging for more with reckless abandon, and some sudden insight flickered into his mind.

The spark fanned into a flame, and he laughed madly into the wind and held his hand aloft. Golden flames exploded from it, undisturbed by the high gales brushing against them, and he imagined himself a beacon for all of Seafoam.

He immersed himself in Fire, and for a moment he felt everything.

Old Chinatsu resting beneath Mt. Silver, half-buried under Ice's malign influence.

Fire itself - one to the southwest, lurking in Mt. Ember where he'd first met it, and the others a radiant mass far to the south in the Orange Islands. He basked in their warmth, soaking it in like the light of the sun.

And last, a jumbled mass of Fire, the biting touch of Ice, the brilliance of Lightning, and a handful of unfamiliar sensations that left Lance with an awful headache. Instinctively, he knew it to be Ash down in Hoenn.

"Haukea!" Lance howled in a voice not entirely his own, his very vocal cords alight with inhuman force that projected like a dragon's roar. Part of him was surprised he hadn't outright spat a gout of golden flame out into the air in challenge. That would've been badass. "Champion Lance is here!"

Silence.

The winds died.

The rain stopped.

The air froze.

And then the unnatural stillness shattered, scattered and broken like a glassy pond with a rock tossed into its center.

Fire sputtered and waned.

The raindrops on his skin crystallized to ice.

His breath emerged in a fog.

A wind caressed him with stinging cold, searing him to the bone. It didn't carry much force behind it, but the gale certainly wasn't gentle. Although it never buffeted him or threatened to knock him off his feet, it cut and pierced and sank deeper than the skin.

Saph snarled and unfurled her wings as blue dragonfire gathered in her maw, her fierce eyes scanning every possible way and her antennae twitching like mad.

I hear your challenge, Champion Lance. Why does a Bearer of the Golden Flame come to my home?

He fought off the cold tendrils of Haukea's power with sheer force of will. The Feather ignited with renewed strength, though it sapped his strength at a terrible rate. With the wind and weather itself threatening him and Saph - the very island seemed to find them repugnant now - he didn't think it was of too much concern.

"I've come for you."

The wind and hail slowed, and then he felt the meaning and intelligence and will behind them communicate with him deeper than crude words could ever hope.

I am here.

And like that, she was.

He'd seen her picture, of course. Had watched every interview she'd possessed. Lance knew exactly what to expect: a rather average woman in most respects, short with waist-length black hair and skin just a few shades darker than bone. The contrast of her pale skin and the darkness of her hair was stark, lending her an ethereal look, yet what truly commanded his attention was the aura wrapped around her.

Command was woven into Haukea's very being. When the Winter Woman spoke, the world itself listened. The wind, the stone, the ice… all belonged to her. She wore a human's skin, but she'd left that life behind long ago to become something greater.

Worst of all, she reminded him of Ash, or at least what Ash might one day become.

Lance resolved to never let him go so far down that lonely road.

She stood serene in her white robes opposite to him. The thin veil of cloth was all that obscured her slender form, though they couldn't have hoped to provide even the barest protection against the cold. Haukea was barefoot, which boggled his mind - a normal human's skin would blister and blacken with frostbite in the subzero temperatures she carried with her.

And most notable of all was the Feather embedded within her breast and running up to her throat. It was a long length of pale white with jagged barbs branching out from it like icicles. They embedded into her skin and pierced the marble-white with ease, even though not a single drop of blood flowed from her wounds.

He couldn't tell if it was just frozen, or if she lacked any blood at all.

Lance kept his hand aloft, channeling Fire like a torch to ward the winter cold away, while the other drifted to the row of pokeballs on his belt. His cape flapped behind him in the light wind that cut and prodded at him always, reminding him of cruel fingers eager to find a wound and twist into it.

"I am Lance!" He repeated, bolstering his spirit as Saph glowered at the Daughter of Winter. "Indigo Champion, Drake of the Wataru, and Bearer of the Golden Flame."

Haukea stared at him with her flat gaze. She was inhumanly still. It was rather like looking at a marble statue, albeit one that might spring to life at any moment.

Then her pale lips twitched into something like a smile, and Lance found himself wishing she'd have stayed frozen.

"You carry contradictory titles," she moved her lips in unfamiliar motions. There was a bit of a delay as she shaped the words, as if the words reached Lance before she'd even articulated them. There was nothing behind those words, and he had to wonder the last time she'd done something as human as speaking. "Champion Taimu was no friend to your clan."

He bristled. "My clan's archives say differently. They broke bread and drank together the night before the battle, and met as equals in honorable combat. He created a world where even his rival's descendants could claim the Champion's throne."

"I was there, Champion Lance."

He grimaced at that reminder of the nature of this thing. How many eons had she lingered in the world? Had she ever been human at all, or was this just a mask the Daughter of Winter wore?

Haukea's stare did not waver. She hadn't blinked once. "Champion Taimu enchanted any and all, yet he was resolute in his goal. He steeled himself and did what was necessary. In another life they might have been brothers, yet Champion Taimu slew the Drake of Blackthorn all the same. A child of summer he might have been, but he knew the Walk of Winter well."

With every word the wind whipped fiercer, as though trying to flail the flesh from his bones. Worst of all, he thought Haukea was complimenting the First. Saph's dragonfire burned brighter in her maw, and if he said the word she'd bathe Haukea in the blue flames in a heartbeat.

Lance cleared his throat. "Thanks for the history lesson, but it's not what I'm here for," he scowled. His Flame wavered, drawing too deep and too fast from his spirit, but he refocused his will and it remained steady and fierce.

He wouldn't show a hint of weakness before Haukea.

Neither of them could abide it.

She waited.

"My duty is to the people of Indigo. I will see them protected, and I will not suffer threats," he said and locked eyes with the Winter Woman. "Should I consider you one?"

Haukea did not appear surprised, though he doubted he'd know even if she was. The winds stilled, though, and his Fire burned without the hindrance of Ice closing in all around.

"I exist to serve Lord Winter," Haukea stated. That didn't make Lance feel any better. All he could imagine was the memory of the great white wings in the Blizzard and the alien intelligence behind its frozen glare. The cold seeping into his bones, then deeper still into his spirit… "My Lord is not concerned with your nation. I have arisen to guide the blind and ignorant to their future."

Those words lingered in the air for too long, ringing in the frozen stillness.

"This world has grown weak in my Lord's long slumber," the barest measure of distaste entered her words. "Soft, unfocused, warm. Coddled by stagnancy and unchallenged. The Walk of Winter demands strength in the face of adversity, and your people will not survive the trials to come as they are."

Lance nearly laughed in her face. "You're telling me you're here to help us?" He scoffed. Saph snarled right alongside him, inching forward as though to leap on the pale woman. Lance pointed at her with righteous indignation. "I know what you are, Haukea. I know what you've done to the Jynx."

She didn't so much as flinch.

"I offer the blessings of my Lord, freely given and willingly accepted," Haukea said without hesitation. "I offer strength, knowledge, and freedom in servitude. The world is harsh, and through my Lord the worthy are given the tools to flourish."

He didn't have a retort to that - nothing that would convince the thing before him to waver in her conviction, at any rate. "So you're really here to help us survive?" Lance asked with blatant skepticism. "As long as we join your cult?"

Her bloodless lips hinted at a frown, and Lance hid a satisfied smirk.

Just as her Ice froze and numbed his Fire, his Fire thawed her Ice.

Haukea was more powerful than him a thousand times over, no doubt. He could feel the terrible weight of her presence as it saturated all the world around them, embedded into the sky and rain and stone, yet Lance wasn't defenseless in the face of her unnatural powers.

If it came down to a fight, he thought he just might be able to win.

It was one thing to freeze the sea or conjure up a howling wind, and quite another to defend against a team of very, very fast and angry dragons.

But if she was telling the truth… even if it was only the truth in her own twisted thoughts which had been mangled and frozen by Ice, she might be worth keeping around.

For now.

"I offer salvation. A respite from the weakness and warmth that has suffused and softened this world and those who eke out their lives within it. Great forces stir," she spoke, the wind howling with every syllable, and the temperature plummeted until each word rang for several seconds in the still air. "Greater than Fire or Lightning. Greater than the Guardians of the Sea and Sky. When your civilization crumbles beneath your feet, remember me. My path is not an easy one as we walk the Long Winter, but it is the only one."

Lance snorted, Fire surging in his hot veins. Saph basked in its radiance - the Feather's power was all that was keeping her conscious in this awful cold. "We've done just fine without you," he scowled. "Fire - Moltres is with us," Lance stated and thought to what little he'd managed to pry out of Ash. "Lugia, the Beasts, Ho-Oh, Mew… they're in our corner."

Haukea scoffed. That was as good a sign as any that he'd had an effect of his own on her. It was unsettling to hear such a human sound come from the Daughter of Winter. "Fire, Lightning, and upstarts! Transient things. Bright and loud for a brilliant moment, then gone," she regained some of her cold composure and leveled him with that flat stare. "The Guardian of the Sea will not be there when you need it most. Its Song will be drowned out by the Roar."

"You are young. All flames die. All lightning fades. It might take a thousand of your lifetimes, but it is their nature to consume themselves and vanish," Haukea spoke with the utmost certainty. Without Fire filling his heart, it might have stung. As it was, the words only redoubled his determination. "Ice is the only constant. It does not require input, only an absence. When Fire and Lightning sputter and die, it is Ice that will reign in the dark and the ashes. It is Ice that will inherit the world."

He shook his head. "I don't see Moltres burning out any time soon," Lance said. "And if Fire is extinguished somewhere down the road, who cares? It's here now, and that's what matters! I'm here to serve my people, not whoever's here a thousand years from now."

The cold deepened with Haukea's displeasure.

Blind, warm, and soft. It is as I expected. You ignore my wisdom, and thus the wisdom of my Lord. You reject the truth of things. There is nothing I may offer you.

The Feather burnt molten gold and the flames licked all the way down his arm in a blaze. Haukea's cold was banished in an instant, though it gnawed and sapped and awaited a moment's distraction to leap back in and suffocate all the heat in his body.

He reached down to Lev's pokeball. Lance didn't give a shit how powerful she might be. A fifty-foot Gyarados appearing on top of you would ruin anyone's day.

"So that's how it is. Are we enemies, then?"

The pale woman's cold presence did not recede, yet neither did it redouble to swallow him up and freeze the blood in his veins. Lance almost found himself disappointed.

This could be one hell of a fight.

Haukea stared unblinkingly.

We are nothing.

He took his hand off Lev's pokeball. That was something he could work with. "If you think you're helping, I won't stop you," Lance bit out, then nearly howled as he yanked on the Feather and his bond with Moltres for everything it had. Flames engulfed him entirely, leaving him wreathed in a fiery cloak not dissimilar to Ash's amazing nutjob of a Magmortar. He nearly collapsed beneath the horrible strain, but held it through sheer force of will long enough to deliver his ultimatum to the Winter Woman.

"I'll leave you in peace. I won't interfere with yours, and you won't interfere with mine. You will not threaten my people. If I hear otherwise, I will come for you," Lance promised with the utmost conviction. "And if I come for you, you will burn."

Then his spirit broke, Fire receded, and he found himself collapsed to his knees as the sapping touch of Ice drained him of all that he had. Haukea stepped forward, heedless of Saph's snapping jaws, and walked unbothered through the roar of dragonfire that burst from Saph's gaping maw.

She seemed almost comforting as she froze the raindrops on Saph's gorgeous scales without so much as a glance, locking the sluggish dragon in place and allowing her free reign of Lance. His fury rose and the Feather sparked, but it was like trying to rekindle a bonfire from its ashes.

He was so tired…

Haukea grasped his jaw firmly in her pale hand. Lance nearly howled at the touch - it was cold like nothing he'd ever experienced, like someone had poured liquid nitrogen over his skin and pressed it in. He feared his skin would blacken and blister till it was frostbitten, though he knew his heat was burning Haukea just as bad.

She didn't even twitch at the agony, though, and that just redoubled his earlier conviction that she wasn't the least bit human.

I am the wind. I am the cold. I am the Daughter of Winter. Your allies come for me. You have earned your title, Champion Lance. If they arrive, they might destroy me. But they will not.

He gasped as the woman cradled his face in a way that reminded him of his mother back when he was just a boy. It had been a long, long time since she'd offered him that affection.

With his face so close to Haukea's pale visage, he couldn't help but note the utter clarity of her pale gaze. It was terrifying, yet somehow enrapturing. There was no doubt in her, no hesitation. She knew what she was and what she must do. There was a purity of purpose there he found horribly appealing.

Lance wished his path was so straightforward.

Fire and Ice are opposites, but we are not enemies. We walk disparate roads to the same destination. You are a Champion of Fire, yet I see my Lord's conviction within you. You will not falter on your road.

She released his jaw and he gasped in his relief - he couldn't so much as speak, but he forced Fire to billow out from the Feather as she wrapped vice like fingers around his wrist. Her hand was raw and covered in ugly blisters that bubbled atop her burnt flesh, yet she didn't hesitate.

Haukea's cold smothered the Feather in an instant. Lance hissed at the absence, as the cold dug into his skin and spirit like knives, but his scorched insides and spirit lay in cinders. He could scarcely muster the motivation and will to push at Haukea, let alone fight her off. The Ice ran through his veins, burning him worse than Fire could ever hope to, and he bit down a howl.

The Storm-Tamer soothed your Fire before it burnt you to ash. I will complete his work. Fire alone will devour you. Your work is not yet done, Champion Lance. My Lord still has some use for you.

But Haukea's work was. She released him after what might have been an eternity, and Lance collapsed in a heap against the frozen stone. He didn't know what she'd done to him, but he felt… great was a strong word. So was good.

Okay might do it.

He was still exhausted, still hollow, still burnt out, but it was like the edge was taken off.

Lance pulled himself up on his trembling arms and stared up at the Winter Woman. She still seemed more like a spirit than a physical being, though he'd felt her touch firsthand.

She stood upright and unflinching despite the awful wounds he'd left on her. Her hand was still a molten, ragged mess of blisters, tattered flesh, and stripped skin. It would be horrifying on anyone else, but she treated it like nothing more than an annoyance.

It fascinated him, even if he wouldn't mind scorching the rest of her to a crisp as well.

The wind rushed against him again. He didn't dare call on Fire this time - even with the soothing cold, he knew he was an inch away from burning out entirely.

You are a wildfire. Unrestrained, you will consume yourself and everything around you. Follow the Walk of Winter. Master Fire, do not allow it to master you.

Haukea peered down at him imperiously as the cold seeped into his bones.

I will abide by your terms. Mine is the long work in service of my Lord, and there is nothing to gain from a conflict between Ice and Fire. I will temper this world in preparation for the trials ahead. The Foundations shake in their slumber, and they will usher in a new age of wonders.

"Just stay away from my people," Lance exhaled as he laid flat against the weathered stone of the spire. He clutched at Saph's paw even as his other hand rested against Lev's pokeball. He could see the shadows of his team approaching fast, buffeted as they were by the fierce gales. Just another few seconds and they would be able to strike Haukea down in a heartbeat.

It might not be necessary, but he'd absolutely feel better having the option available.

He'd already learned enough to make sure their next encounter wouldn't end this way.

If she took a step out of line, Lance would make her regret it.

Oh, she was strong. More powerful than he'd thought possible. Haukea's authority was absolute on these islands, and she carried Ice wherever she went. But she was vulnerable - he'd seen that she could be burnt.

And if he wasn't half-dead from sustaining himself off Fire, Lance felt more and more confident that his team would be able to put the Daughter of Winter into the grave. He hoped it wouldn't come to that - it wouldn't be a victory without terrible, unthinkable costs - but it made him feel better to have the option.

Leave me and mine to do as we will.

Begone, Indigo Champion.

Just as Dragonite barreled through the air with a Hyper Beam swirling in his maw, Haukea vanished into the wind. She was gone as if she'd never been there at all.

Yet the wind still howled, the hail still pelted them, and he knew she was watching.

Always watching.

Lance wearily rose to his feet. His combat uniform was a bit of a mess, his cape was filthy, and his pride was in ruins, but he still found himself in decent spirits as his beloved friends landed heavily upon the spire and circled around him.

He was worse than exhausted, but nonetheless held himself tall and proud as he recalled the half-conscious Saph with a whispered word of gratitude and began to saddle up Dragonite. His friend snarled, absolutely ablaze with fury, yet sniffed at Lance gently as though to prove he was still there.

"I'm here," Lance declared to his friends, mind abuzz with the events of the day. He shook off his stung pride. This hadn't gone quite how he'd like it to, but he'd still come out ahead. A stalemate of sorts with the Winter Woman and, more importantly, knowledge.

You couldn't fight an opponent you didn't know, and now he felt as though he knew Haukea quite well indeed.

A small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

"We got everything we needed," Lance said as he hopped onto the saddle and strapped himself in. It took a little adjustment since it had last been on Saph, but Dragonite was an old hand at this. He was quick to return the rest of his team, although Lance knew he'd have to give Magnus and Aerodactyl a good workout when they got back to the Plateau.

They were pissed.

"C'mon," he pointed Dragonite in the direction of Indigo Plateau. Years of flying across the regions had given him a very good sense of direction. "Let's go home."

Dragonite couldn't launch himself into the air fast enough, and soon enough they'd left the bitter cold and patter of hail behind them for good. Lance turned back to the Seafoam Islands as a bit of summer heat finally brushed their skin, and felt his blood turn to ice in his veins as a pale figure garbed in white stared at him from the gritty sand of the beach outside the Seafoam Caverns.

He turned away and grit his teeth.

She might have helped him, but Haukea was no ally. Haukea was a monster at heart, and monsters were made to be slain.

Lance shut his eyes, and quickly drifted off to sleep.

For the first time in weeks, his sleep restored him.

He was finally warm again.

A/N: This probably isn't what you expected, but I hoped you enjoyed it! I've been building up Haukea for a while in Traveler and have had this idea floating around in my head for ages. I didn't want to release until the end of the Johto arc, so it's been killing me to sit on this. I was actually so excited for it that I wrote it all tonight! Lance's POV is so much fun to write, and I had a great time showing Haukea from his perspective as well.

This is a little different from the usual fare, but I really enjoyed having the chance to show how Lance is faring after his struggles. He's not quite himself, but now that Haukea has shown him a challenge within his grasp, I think it'll do a lot of good for him. This was a reconnaissance mission more than anything, and I think Lance learned everything he needed to.

Anyways, I'll stop rambling now. I hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas if you celebrate it, but otherwise Happy Holidays and have a wonderful New Year!

I'll see you all in 2021!