Light. And noise. Lance buried his face deeper into his pillow. He could feel his mind treacherously unmooring from the warm shore of sleep.
The knock came again. "Lance, are you up yet?"
I'm up now, Lance thought mulishly, but he didn't make any move to leave bed. He felt as if Toku had sat on him.
"I promised Muno we'd visit him in Pewter today, and the morning's already half gone!"
Muno? Lance sat up, frowning. Why were they going to see Muno? He didn't remember anything about that. He climbed out of bed and opened the door. "We're going to see Muno?"
Jiro was sitting at the table in a yellow bathrobe. He grinned, and Lance rolled his eyes. Jiro always had far too much energy in the morning.
"You really were out of it last night. Yes, we're going to see Muno today. Now come on, breakfast is on the table. Eat up, and we'll be on our way."
When Lance had polished off his rice and was halfway through his miso soup, a flaw in Jiro's plan occurred to him. "Pewter's more than a day away."
"Not if we fly."
". . . Oh." Lance blinked, shoved a slice of pickled radish into his mouth, and went to get dressed.
The storm had blown over in the night. Outside, the sun shone brightly and the breeze was fresh and salty. It really was a perfect day for flying. Toku sniffed the air and let out a pleased rumble.
"You'll fly on Asahi?" Lance asked. Jiro hadn't released the fearow yet. He lifted his ditto off his shoulder and set her on the ground.
"Today I thought I'd try something a little different. What about it, Gigaku?"
For a moment, the ditto's face showed nothing more than a cocky smile. Then she expanded outwards like she'd been blown full of air, her color shifting from pink to golden yellow. An instant later, a kairyu towered over Jiro. She raised her head and roared.
Jiro chuckled at the dumbfounded look on Lance's face. "You've seen Gigaku transform before."
Not into a kairyu, Lance thought, but didn't say. What makes a kairyu any different? Jiro would ask, and Lance wouldn't know how to answer. He hadn't spoken to Jiro about his life in the Ryu's Gift. The subject never seemed to come up, and Lance wasn't sure he wanted to raise it. The thought of home still throbbed like a dull pain.
They quieted as the kairyu rose into the sky. The day was too brilliant for words. Toku's wing beats were slightly sluggish from the storm-battle last night, but the wind stayed strong, making flight easy. Mount Moon spread out before them. Conveyor trains glinted below like fish moving in a stream.
Lance was hit with a rush of disorientation as he looked down at the winding mountain path. What if time and place were bound together, like double-faced fabric, and somewhere below he was still walking, a miniryu coiled around his neck?
"Your shed-skin is down there," he whispered into Toku's ear, fighting back a wash of vertigo. He raised his voice to Jiro, trying to distract himself from the sensation of being in two places at once. "Why are we going to see Muno?"
"He asked me for help last night at the party. Seems he's got a bit of a headache to deal with—a resurrected fossil pokemon that's become an absolute terror. The laboratory doesn't have the means to house it properly and so it's been going around destroying mining equipment. Some kind of flying type that's been able to elude everything Muno's thrown at it, apparently. I told him you'd handle it."
"Me? Are you not up to it?" Lance asked solemnly. Toku snorted.
Jiro caught the teasing and laughed. "Listen, I'm doing you a favor. It's good to have people in your debt. Eventually, you can come and collect."
The sun had fallen from its zenith when they landed in front of a tall building some distance from Pewter City. Muno stood waiting outside, accompanied by a woman in a long white coat. His face bristled into a smile as they dismounted.
"Flew, did you?" he exclaimed. "Had Natsume already booked it back to Saffron?"
Jiro shrugged. "I didn't check. Teleportation always leaves me with a stomach ache, you know. Flying's much more pleasant."
"You're not wrong about the stomach ache," Muno said with a grimace. "But your timing's good. We spotted it less than an hour ago, lurking around the west camp. That's only a short walk from here. Oh, and this is Doctor Amari, a researcher from the Pewter Institute."
The woman offered them each a short bow. "Thank you for taking the time to help us out," she said, as they began to walk. "It's all gotten a bit out of hand. When the grant came through to fund the resurrection, I'm afraid there was a little less attention paid to post-resurrection containment than was necessary—"
"More than a little," Muno interjected with a snort.
The researcher shot him an annoyed look. "We're grateful for Leader Muno's assistance," she said, a trifle coldly. "Initially there was a hope that as a rock-type specialist, he would be capable—"
"Call it a rock-type all you want, it's a goddamned winged thing. Outside my wheelhouse. Above my wheelhouse, I should say."
The two were all but glaring at each other now and Jiro was barely managing to hold back an amused smile. "Excuse me," Lance said to the researcher, hoping to distract her. "What do you mean by resurrection?"
She turned to him, her disgruntled expression vanishing. "Fossil resurrection. The reviving of extinct pokemon." Lance's face stayed blank. "Let me put it in simple terms. A thousand years ago, different pokemon lived in this area than do now. Many of these ancient pokemon died out completely, but their fossils remained in the rock. We excavated one of these fossils and brought the pokemon back to life. It's all been quite thrilling."
"A thousand years ago?" Lance said, trying to wrap his head around the idea. "It must have been very different then." Less people, less noise. He remembered how shocked he'd been when he'd first come to Pewter and heard the booms and blasts of the mining machines. The ancient pokemon had probably been shocked too.
"Very different," the researcher agreed. "Wetter, for one thing. Vast chunks of Pewter were underwater at that time. Aerodactyl were quite common then. From the spacing of the fossil remains, we suspect they used to live in flocks. That could very well be the reason for this aerodactyl's erratic behavior. Clearly they aren't meant for solitary life. Now if we could just resurrect a few more, enough to form a proper flock—"
"Full of bright ideas, aren't you!" Muno exclaimed through a scowl. "A whole flock of those things harrying my miners? No thank you. One is more than plenty."
From the rising din, Lance guessed they were getting close to the mining site. In another few minutes, they reached the edge of the camp. An onix was coiled protectively around a large rigging. Several of the miners had abandoned their work to watch the sky, where a dark grey shape circled. Suddenly, there was a loud roar and a white blast shot towards the rigging. The onix's stones flashed a protective silver as it flung itself in the way of the blast. An explosion shook the campsite—when the smoke cleared, the onix lay slumped to the ground. Muno swore and ran into the fray, two more onix appearing at his side.
"I think that's your cue," Jiro said. Lance nodded and climbed on Toku's back. He sent out Kana and smiled as the charizard appeared, huffing fire.
"Feeling up to an air-fight?" Lance asked her, not surprised when she bared her teeth in a grin. The three of them took off towards the gray pokemon—aerodactyl, the researcher had called it. Kana let out a trumpeting roar, drawing the aerodactyl's attention. It shot forward. Closer, Lance made out a spiked head, a blade-shaped tail, and a massive jaw, where another hyper-beam was already building.
Toku swerved left and Kana right. The beam drilled into the cliff behind them, leaving a smoking hole several feet deep. Kana spat back a shimmering wall of fire. But the aerodactyl didn't even try to move out of the way. It waded into the flames as if unbothered by the heat and emerged with its wings glowing white.
The attack caught Kana in the belly. She buckled, but recovered quickly, swiping out with a metal claw. Her attack met with empty air; the aerodactyl had retreated out of reach. It's fast. Now the pokemon was circling back. Light struck off its head, which had taken on a metallic sheen.
"Air slash," Lance called out, when it was close enough that he could make out the bright amber of its eyes. The blast caught the pokemon squarely in the face, slowing its momentum enough for Kana to maneuver above it. She landed a green-fisted dragon claw on its back. As it sagged from the blow, Kana slammed a metal claw into its head.
With a whine, the pokemon dropped. It caught a low draft and circled back up, but didn't move to attack, watching them warily from a distance. Lance noticed the way its ears were flattened and the edged tips of its wings were angled inwards. He didn't think that was the posture of a pokemon preparing another attack.
"What do you think?" he asked Toku. She let out a ponderous rumble and then winged towards a cliff ledge that overlooked the mining camp. The pokemon followed. Toku called out to it and after a moment's hesitation, it joined them on the ledge, a few feet distant with its wings drawn protectively around its body.
"Hello," Lance said, stepping closer and keeping his hands tucked to his sides. The pokemon was as big as Toku—Lance's head would have fit easily inside its long jaw. Its skin was thick and rock-like, but not actually made of rock, Lance saw as he stepped closer. "We don't mean you any harm." He'd noticed that the aerodactyl had aimed its attack at the mining machine, not the people or the onix, and he thought he knew why. If he and Toku had returned to find the Ryu's Gift overrun by ravenous machines, he doubted they would have acted any differently. "You've been sleeping a long time," he told the gray pokemon, who tracked his approach suspiciously. "Everything's changed. I know that's hard. This is your home, but you don't fit here now."
He wasn't sure if the pokemon followed his words, but Lance's tone seemed to reassure him. He stared with unblinking yellow eyes as Lance extended his hand towards the side of his snout. But Lance noticed a tensing in the aerodactyl's neck muscles and withdrew his hand just as the pokemon snapped at it. Kana let out a roar. She smacked her claw hard against the aerodactyl's head. Her wings fanned out behind her, the threat clear. Lance waited to see if the aerodactyl would unfurl his own wings and resume the fight, but after a moment he dropped his head and let out another low whine.
Steadying himself with a breath, Lance extended his hand again. This time, no tensing came. The pokemon's skin was rough like a cliff-side, pocketed with grooves and divots. As Lance stroked at its snout, the pokemon snuffled and closed its eyes. Lance edged closer, fascinated by how the rocky skin gave way to tough, membranous wings. A ridge jutted up from the pokemon's back and small, three-clawed hands extended from the tips of its wings.
The wing muscles rippled under his hands. Suddenly, the pokemon surged forward, knocking Lance off his feet. Strong claws clamped around his side, and the ground fell away.
Stunned, Lance hung limp. The ground swam back into view—distant and at the same time, all too close. This wasn't like flying on Toku's back. There was nothing separating him from the fall except for the painful jut of claws against his stomach. He twisted his head around and made out Toku and Kana on their tail. But they were growing smaller—the aerodactyl was outpacing them.
Ridges rose ahead. They'd left the valley behind and were climbing the side of a mountain. Without any warning, the pokemon let go.
Lance opened his mouth to scream, but the impact knocked the sound out of him—a soft impact, he realized through the red rush of panic. He sat up hazily. He'd been dropped into the center of a large nest, lined with moss, leaves, and fur. There was a loud flapping and then the aerodactyl settled in behind him. Something rough and warm dragged through his hair. A . . . tongue?
As Lance sat there, too baffled to move, the sensation came again. He twitched as the tongue ran down his neck. A claw gripped his shoulder, holding him in place. The tongue resumed its work.
I'm being groomed, Lance realized. He began to laugh shakily. The sound made the pokemon pause. It let out an uncertain whine. "It's all right," Lance said, beginning to smile. "You can keep going. My hair could probably use it."
When Toku and Kana, snorting and leaking steam like a Saffron factory, finally found them, Lance waved cheerfully. The charizard huffed. She stamped forward and entered into a cautious exchange of sniffs and nudges with the aerodactyl. Toku came over to Lance's side and rumbled a question.
"I'm fine, Toku." Lance looked back at the aerodactyl, who had taken to the air and began a playful back and forth with Kana. "I think he's lonely." The kairyu followed Lance's and nodded after a moment, her eyes softening.
Lance sighed, flopping down onto the aerodactyl's nest, which was surprisingly comfortable considering the aerodactyl's thick skin. Kana and the ancient pokemon seemed completely at ease now, trading blows back and forth. After a few minutes, they landed and began to fuss with each other's wings. It occurred to Lance that Jiro and Muno were probably wondering where he'd gone. Reluctantly, he sat up and whistled to Kana.
"We should head back." Lance looked at the aerodactyl, thinking that the researcher had been right. Even if they could find him a quiet valley to live in, free from mining noise, he would still be unhappy without company. Lance frowned. They should have thought about that before they woke the aerodactyl up.
"I'll make sure they don't leave you alone."
Or worse, stick him in a glass cage, like they'd done to Kaisho. Lance's chin set. No, he wouldn't let that happen.
Lance wasn't surprised to see the aerodactyl follow Toku and Kana without any prompting. After a few minutes flying, the mining camp came into view. The camp looked calmer now, though work still hadn't resumed. Toku spotted Jiro standing off to the side, and landed by him. The aerodactyl hung back in the sky, circling low.
"What happened to your hair?" were Jiro's first words. Lance jerked a finger towards the circling pokemon. "Hah! Don't tell me it's adopted you."
"I think he may have," Lance admitted. "Do you know what's going to happen to him, Jiro?"
"The researchers will probably want him back. Although . . ." Jiro trailed off, a thoughtful look on his face.
"What happened?" Muno hurried towards them, shooting dark glances up at the aerodactyl. As he neared, the pokemon swooped down and landed in front of Lance. He bared his teeth at Muno, who took a hasty step back, his hand falling to his belt.
"It's all right!" Lance said, giving the aerodactyl a quick pat on the neck. "He doesn't mean me any harm." He wondered which of them he was trying to reassure.
Muno stared. "You've tamed the damn thing . . ?"
"Oh excellent!" Doctor Amari had joined them. "Very nice work. If you can just lead him back to the lab, we can take it from there—"
"Not so fast." Muno crossed his arms. "Take it back to the lab? And then what? What's changed? You still don't have the cash for a psychic security team. Until you do, I insist you keep that thing in a pokeball and don't let it out."
Lance's eyes narrowed. The researcher looked similarly affronted. "Don't be ridiculous. We didn't go through all the work of resurrecting this gorgeous pokemon to lock it away. We'll take stricter precautions this time—and anyway, that's our business, not yours."
"It's my business as gym leader, and you'd better remember that! The safety of Pewter is my responsibility."
The researcher snorted, no longer bothering to hide her disdain. "The safety of Pewter? When children are getting lung conditions from your mining—"
"Without the mines, those children would starve," Muno snapped.
When a tense silence fell, Lance seized the opportunity to interject, "What if he came with me?"
"I wouldn't object," Muno said, just as the researcher answered, "That would also entirely defeat the point of this. We resurrected that aerodactyl in order to study it!"
"Doctor Amari." They all turned to Jiro, who continued in a soft but deliberate voice. "If you'll allow me to make a brief point? From what I've heard, your institute has a serious need for funding and further resurrection research will be impractical until that funding is realized. Now, my protege here will be competing very visibly in tournaments and other high profile matches. If he competes with your aerodactyl—well, that's quite the advertisement for your work, isn't it? You're sure to receive all sorts of attention. Indeed, I would offer my personal guarantee of it."
The researcher wavered. Her gaze dropped to Lance's arm, still resting on the aerodactyl's neck.
"You make a good point," she said at last. "I'll need to talk it over with my colleagues, of course. Would you mind coming back to the Institute with me? Your word as a member of the Elite Four would hold some weight."
"Happy to," Jiro said. He winked at Lance, and followed Doctor Amari down the trail. Muno lingered, ignoring the glowering aerodactyl.
"Before I forget—and if your bodyguard permits—I owe you this. Doubly owe it, now." He handed Lance a badge fashioned in the shape of a boulder.
"Thank you, Muno," Lance said with a short bow. "I was happy to help."
"Well—" Muno tugged at his ear. "I'd better get back to the boys. We're behind schedule enough as is. I won't forget this, though."
The aerodactyl remained on high alert even after Muno hurried off. He stood stiffly, his sharp eyes darting from cliff to cliff as if seeking out further threats. Something about the stance gave Lance a painful twinge of nostalgia.
"There was a man I once knew who was very sharp-eyed and cunning," Lance said slowly. The aerodactyl's ears pricked up and one amber eye settled on him. "He never missed his mark. Maybe that's why they called him Archer."
Lance faltered. His stomach clenched at the name. Since he'd left Team Rocket, he'd tried not to think about Archer at all. Every time he did, questions threatened to bury him like one of Muno's cave-ins. Was Archer also a murderer? Had he hoped to make Lance into one?
"It suits you," he finished in a whisper. He half-hoped the aerodactyl would reject the name, but the pokemon let out a pleased croon and licked Lance on the cheek. Lance tried the name again. "Archer."
This time, it came easier.
Jiro returned to Saffron the next day, but Lance remained in Pewter three more weeks, part of the deal Jiro had struck with the Pewter Institute. The researchers had all sorts of tests they wanted to run, and Lance did his best to coax Archer through them. The aerodactyl was an early riser. Lance got up while the morning was still gray to watch him and Kana make a loop of mountain—Kana had taken to Archer immediately. They shared the same quick-burning spirit, quick to quarrel and quick to make up.
When the three weeks were through, Lance set off down the road to keep his appointment with Leader Fiorelli. He could have flown to Viridian—that would certainly have been the quicker way. But he wanted some time to himself and his pokemon before he returned to the noise and bustle of Saffron city. It was good to fall asleep huddled up next to Toku, warmed from the heat of her body.
They kept off the main road after a wagon nearly swerved into a ditch at the sight of Archer, roaring happily in the morning air. Their progress was slow and not very quiet. Archer broke trees; Kana fought beedrill hordes. In one such battle, she lit up the edge of a cultivated field. That delayed them some more. Lance had to find the farmer to offer money and his deepest apologies. But the old couple were gracious. Kana had only charred the corner of their field that they left unharvested for the wild pokemon. They invited Lance to dinner, and that evening he sat quietly in their dark, low-roofed house, listening to their rambling talk.
The road needed fixing. The extra traffic to Viridian was well and good, but the ruts hadn't been patched for five years and the path was terribly treacherous after sunset. All of Kanto could use some fixing, really. Well, who could expect any different with a ghost-witch for a champion? Ghosts and metal cities. These were dark days, indeed.
Lance kept a respectful silence. He lingered the next morning, helping with a few odd jobs. Kana chased off a pinsir colony that had been nesting nearby and worrying the old couple's crops.
A few days after leaving the farm, he spotted Viridian's welcome sign, staked by the road. It looked new.
Lance's memory of Viridian was a distant one, of run-down huts and summer silence. But the town seemed livelier than he remembered it. Many of the houses were newly roofed, and the small Pokemon Center seemed at the verge of capacity. The Viridian Gym's arching white roof crested high above the other buildings. It was visible from every part of town, shining like a mountain peak. For a moment, Lance was reminded of the way the casino in Celadon had towered, unmissable, over the rest of the city.
Entering the gym, Lance found himself in a brightly-lit room, scattered with suede coaches. A receptionist in a white blouse stood up behind the desk.
"Are you here for a gym challenge?" When Lance nodded, she asked for his name, and then said, apologetically, "I'm afraid Leader Fiorelli is having a late lunch."
"Will he be long?"
"Not more than a half-hour, I'm sure. You're welcome to wait here. Would you like some water, tea?"
"No, I'm fine." Lance hesitated. "Would it be all right if I let out my pokémon?"
"I don't see why not, as long as they're well-behaved."
That left out Kana and Archer then, Lance thought with a private grin. Toku settled next to him on the couch, resting her snout on his shoulder, but Kaisho soared around investigating the room. He ended up hovering near the receptionist, eyes fixed on her long braid. She looked up from her work and offered the hakuryu a slightly nervous smile.
"He likes your braid." Lance spoke up from the couch. "It is very pretty," he added politely.
This won him a more natural-looking smile. The receptionist held up the end of her braid to Kaisho. "You're very pretty too," she told the hakuryu, the tension leaving her shoulders. "You like my braid?" Kaisho trilled and darted closer. "It's a tradition in my family. All my sisters have beautiful braids. Well, except for my youngest sister." The smile slid from the woman's face. "She cut hers off."
"Like Hunter," Lance muttered under his breath, discomforted by the memory. Hunter was also someone he tried not to think about these days.
The receptionist stiffened. "What did you say?"
"You reminded me of someone I know. Knew." Lance faltered as the receptionist stared at him and mumbled, "Hunter. She was also from Viridian."
The harsh ring of a bell cut off the receptionist's words. She retreated behind her desk, looking slightly pale. "Leader Fiorelli has returned," she said. "Please follow me, Challenger Lance. And if you could please return your pokemon to their balls? Thank you."
They passed down a long corridor and through a broad set of reinforced doors. The stadium was dimly-lit by orange lamps hung mid-way up the walls, but even by the low light, Lance could tell the room was huge. The battlefield was a mixture of rocky terrain and sandpit. There were three elevated boxes—to the right, the referee stood with two kadabra; opposite, Giovanni sat in a high-backed chair. The remaining box, presumably, was meant for Lance.
Giovanni spoke without rising. "A pleasure to see you again, young man," he said courteously. "I have Jiro's word that you'll give me a riveting battle."
"I'll try not to disappoint you, sir," Lance said. Jiro claimed Giovanni was the best battler of all the gym leaders. Lance had been looking forward to their fight ever since Cerulean. He added, "And I hope you won't disappoint me," and then tensed, wondering if it was inappropriate to tease this man as if he were Jiro. He'd been friendly enough back at the party, but sitting up in his high-backed chair, face half-hidden by shadow, he seemed intimidating and remote.
Giovanni's chuckle echoed through the stadium. "A bold tongue. Let's see if you can live up to it."
As soon as Lance had taken his place in the challenger's box, a blue barrier sprang up behind him. There was no one watching from the rafter seats, so Lance could only assume that the protective barrier was for the benefit of the building. Giovanni's battling style must be powerfully destructive, to require two kadabra to maintain the shielding.
The referee announced that the battle would be three on three. Giovanni's first pokemon was a nidoking, unusually large. The light gleamed off its spiky armor. Lance hesitated before settling on Archer's pokeball. The aerodactyl's wings and thick skin offered natural advantages against a poison-type like the nidoking, and Lance thought Archer would enjoy the chance to fight.
The aerodactyl took to the air with an ear-splitting shriek. He made straight for the rafters—probably reminded of the Pewter cliffs—and ran head-first into the psychic barrier. He let out a whine as he was pushed back by the invisible force, turning to cast Lance a beseeching look.
"It's all right, Archer!" Lance called up to him. He pointed towards the nidoking, who was watching them with disdain. "There's your opponent."
It was a good thing the referee chose that moment to raise her flag, signalling the official start of the battle, because Archer didn't wait for the gesture to spring forward. He harried the nidoking with a rapid series of wing attacks, letting out a satisfied roar with each strike. Before the nidoking could land a counter-attack, he retreated into the air, crowing.
Giovanni watched the back-and-forth calmly from his chair. His stillness gave Lance an uneasy feeling. The nidoking, he noticed, barely seemed phased by Archer's barrage. It had moved with each strike—not trying to dodge completely, which would have been useless—but angling its body so that Archer's wings struck against the thickest portion of its back armor. The pokemon clearly knew what it was doing.
And Giovanni still hadn't spoken a single command.
Maybe he should have saved Archer's first real battle for a less experienced opponent. But it was too late for second thoughts. Distance was the way to go, Lance decided. That was where Archer's wings lent him an advantage. Attacking close would forfeit that.
"Hyper beam," he called out. The heat of the beam fused the sand together, casting a trail of glass, but the nidoking had already vanished. Dug under the floor, Lance realized, taken aback by its speed. Archer let out an irritated roar and began to circle close to the ground.
"Keep your distance—" Lance began. Even as he spoke a purple tail peaked out from the sand. Archer moved like lightning. But when his jaws bit down on the exposed tail, the nidoking shot up from the ground, its left claw alight.
"Iron head!" Lance shouted, moving to the rim of the box, but the nidoking's punch had already caught Archer across the skull. As he reeled, the nidoking leaped forward and pushed him to the ground, one massive claw pinning each wing.
"Sludge wave." Giovanni spoke his first command without rising from his chair.
The nidoking grinned. As Archer roared his indignation, the nidoking bent over him. Thick, purple-black liquid oozed from its throat into Archer's open mouth. The aerodactyl began to thrash madly, fighting to close his jaw, but the nidoking held it open with both its claws, using the rest of its body weight to keep him immobile.
"Hyper beam!" Lance tried, but Archer was beyond sense now. He twisted frantically, almost managing to break away, and then fell abruptly limp as the poison took hold. Veins of ugly purple bubbled up under his rocky skin. The sight turned Lance's stomach. He took the stairs down from the challenger's box two at a time, barely noticing the referee's call, "The challenger's pokemon is unable to battle. Leader Fiorelli is the winner."
Archer's rocky skin felt warm, like a heated coal. His eyes had shut but he twitched every few seconds, his claws clenching and unclenching. His breathing was erratic.
"A spirited pokemon, but not very wise." Giovanni's voice floated down, thick with amusement. "Archer, you called him? What an interesting choice of name."
Lance took a breath, fighting to keep his voice level. He didn't like the glibness in the gym leader's tone. He didn't like it at all. "I need to take Archer to the Pokemon Center now and get him treated. I'm sorry I couldn't give you the battle you wanted, sir."
"Nonsense! It would be a shame to end the battle now." The gym leader spoke into a device by his chair. "Miss Iwata, bring me the nidoking antidote." To Lance, he said, "The Pokemon Center would just treat him with my antidote anyway. Believe me," he said with a short chuckle, "Viridian isn't at the cutting edge of medical care."
Lance stayed crouched by Archer's body, running his hands gently over the aerodactyl's snout. The door groaned and the receptionist hurried in, a canister in her arms. Lance snatched it from her and sprayed the contents carefully into Archer's mouth. An anxious minute ticked by. Had the spread of the purple slowed? Archer's breathing did seem more regular.
"A rest in its pokeball, and it'll be right as rain," Giovanni said, an edge of impatience to his voice. "Shall we proceed?"
"All right," Lance answered, but his heart felt leaden as he returned to the challenger's box. He couldn't shrug off the thought that Giovanni could have defeated Archer in a less painful way if he had chosen to. Still, it had been Lance's fault for sending out a half-wild pokemon. He shouldn't blame his opponent for that.
His hand fell to Kana's pokeball. She could handle this.
"Be careful at close range," Lance told the charizard in a low voice, as she materialized at his side. "It will try to pin your wings."
Kana huffed her understanding and directed a dark look at the nidoking. As the referee called out the new match-up, Lance noticed Giovanni pulling something from his pocket. His eyes narrowed. It looked like . . . a giant pair of glasses?
"Sandstorm," Giovanni said in a ringing voice.
A wind stirred across the battlefield that had no clear source. The sand whipped up. Lance raised his sleeves over his eyes as the air clouded with grit. He could just make out the figure of Giovanni, still reclining comfortably. Behind his glasses, he—unlike Lance—could see the battlefield clearly. Lance twisted his head from side to side, but he couldn't find the nidoking.
Kana was keeping to a high altitude. Her tail flame burned like a beacon through the sandstorm: the concealment would only work one way. A hunk of rock sped through the air like a fast-moving stormcloud. Kana dodged narrowly. She broke the next few boulders with her claws, but they seemed to have no end. The winds were intensifying, forcing Kana towards the ground. Lance could barely keep his eyes open now—even a quick glance stung horribly.
Hold on. Why bother looking? Their strategy was clear enough. They meant to bring Kana close to the ground, where she'd be vulnerable to the same maneuver that defeated Archer. He shut his eyes.
"It'll come from below, Kana! When it comes, grab it!"
For a minute there was only darkness behind Lance's lids and the rushing sound of the sandstorm. Then Kana roared. The nidoking must have made the leap.
"Fire spin!" Lance shouted and opened his eyes.
A vortex of flame shone in the middle of the sandstorm, like a sand-beast that had grown a fiery heart. The wind fell off and the sand settled, but the vortex continued to burn. Lance counted fifteen seconds until the flames dispersed. Kana soared up with a roar, and the nidoking dropped to the ground. The referee hesitated as the nidoking struggled to its feet.
"Air slash," Lance said sharply. The blow knocked the nidoking back, and this time it did not make a move to rise.
"Nidoking is unable to battle. The challenger is the winner."
Lance let out a breath. His still eyes stung horribly from the sand. Kana flew to the side of the box. "That was a beautiful fire spin," he told her, running his hand down her neck.
"That's more like it," Giovanni said approvingly from across the battlefield, removing the glasses and placing them back in his pocket. He flicked his wrist and a marowak appeared. The pokemon stood only three feet tall, but Lance didn't miss the sharpness in its eyes as they locked onto Kana, nor the deliberate way it twirled its bone boomerang. When the referee's flag rose, the marowak became a blur of movement, but no attack came. It spun across the sand, throwing up and catching its club. Each time the boomerang returned to its hand, the white of the bone seemed to shine more brightly.
Lance narrowed his eyes. "Air slash," he called out. The marowak caught its boomerang and darted to the side, the blast passing harmlessly by him. When Lance blinked, there was not just one marowak but ten, arrayed in a circle beneath Kana. In unison, the marowak threw their boomerangs.
Kana ducked beneath the ten spinning clubs and blazed out with a flamethrower. The fire devoured the copies one by one, leaving the battlefield empty. Lance realized the ploy too late. Kana was only feet from the ground.
"Up!" he shouted, "Go up!"
Before she could rise, the rebound of the boomerang caught Kana in the head. She stilled, dazed, and the marowak shot up from the sand, catching the end of her tail in one hand. With its other hand it caught the boomerang. Reacting on instinct, Kana whipped her tail up—the marowak used the momentum to spring onto her back.
"Fire spin," Lance said quickly. But as the flame rushed up from Kana's tail, the marowak moved. It tapped its boomerang in a rapid pattern across Kana's right wing; the wing sagged as if it had become sheeted with metal, and her flight went lop-sided. The marowak jumped to the left wing. The boomerang struck out once more, too fast for Lance's eye to follow. Kana dropped into free-fall. She hit the sand with a dull thump, belly-first, and whined—the sound was high-pitched and tight with panic. Her wings hung limply at her side.
How had that—but there was no time to ponder how. The marowak was advancing down Kana's back, boomerang in hand.
"Your tail flame!" Lance shouted. "Kana, calm down, use your tail-flame—"
His words reached her as the marowak raised its boomerang over her head. Fire flared from Kana's tail, rippling out like the surface of a lake, but the boomerang had already hit home with a sickeningly sharp thud.
Kana's head drooped. The fire dissipated. Lance stared at her motionless body, stunned.
"Her wings," he said, unable to keep the panic from his voice, "what did you do to her wings?"
Giovanni smiled and spoke affably. "No need to get yourself worked up. My marowak has perfected the art of dislocating bones. She knows to make the injury non-permanent. I'm not in the habit of crippling my challengers' pokemon." He let out a short chuckle.
Non-permanent. From a distance, Kana's wings looked like two crumpled kairyu capes.
The gym leader's words had been spoken in a reassuring tone, but Lance heard a darker implication hanging behind them. He could have crippled Kana, if he'd chosen to. He could have taken her wings away for good, and Lance would have been helpless to stop it. He couldn't shake the feeling that Giovanni wanted him to understand that—to understand how powerless he had been at that moment. Lance clenched his fists around the metal rim of the challenger's box. His legs felt shaky.
Giovanni's smile was disquieting. The man was still reclining comfortably in his chair, but his relaxed posture now seemed to Lance like that of an arbok before it struck. For a moment, he wanted to call an end to the battle. Then anger flooded him, hot and simple with clarity.
No. He didn't want to end the battle. He wanted to win it.
"Recalling her won't damage her wings further?" Lance asked tightly.
"You needn't worry. That's quite safe."
Red light wrapped around Kana.
"Your final pokemon?" Giovanni asked. He leaned slightly forward in his chair. "I hope you don't intend to deprive me of dueling a dragon."
Toku didn't make a sound when she materialized into the dimly-lit stadium. Catching Lance's mood, she turned, and their eyes met. "They hurt Kana," Lance said to her quietly. "The marowak's fast. The bone's the threat, not the rest of it."
Toku nodded. She winged to the center of the stadium, still silent. Lance felt his breathing slow to match hers. She weaved gracefully through the air, in a dance the marowak down below was powerless to interrupt. The yellow luster of her scales shone with their own light, like gold ore in a dark mine. Below, the marowak multiplied. Each image watched with an upturned skull as Toku danced.
"Up," Lance called, as ten bommerangs sang through the air. "Twister."
The wind punctured every false image, turned the false boomerangs into empty air. The real boomerang was born aloft by the updraft.
"Dragon claw," Lance said firmly. Toku caught his meaning. Green dragon-fire sprang up around her claws. She bore down through the air and cleaved the boomerang in one clean strike.
The fragments hit the sand without a sound. The marowak flinched. As if in a trance, it stepped forward and bent slowly over the bone fragments. It turned up towards Giovanni's box and let out a keening whine.
A deep silence fell. Giovanni stirred.
"So you have a ruthless streak after all," he said, recalling the marowak. "Very well. I see your dragonite has some power. You will find I have some as well."
Their eyes met across the stadium, and Lance raised his chin. Anger simmered under his skin. Over Giovanni's head, Lance thought that he caught movement in the rafters. He looked up, but the shadows were impenetrable.
The release of a pokeball drew his gaze back down. The pokemon was taller than Toku and certainly heavier. Its body was a fortress of gray and orange rock. The horn that jutted from its head gleamed a sharp silver. Its red eyes rose to Toku, and the two stared at each other in stiff, combative silence.
"Stealth rock," Giovanni said. Five hunks of rock rose from the sidelines and hovered in a circle around Toku. The kairyu eyed them warily, but the stones didn't move any closer. "Earth power."
A column of sand shot up beneath Toku.
"Twister," Lance said sharply. The blast scattered the sand, but it reformed an instant later. A second column shot up, then a third. The columns moved towards Toku like circling gyarados.
Rocks above. Sand below. Giovanni's pokemon had the power to animate both at once. And Toku was trapped between them. But as the sand-columns and stones converged, Lance was subsumed by calm. This he understood. There were no tricks here, no poisons, no illusions, just the pure power of earth and rock.
Toku had power too. And Lance knew the word for it—for anger that became power.
"Outrage," he said softly.
A red tinge spread down Toku's scales, like the deepest and hottest coals of a fire. Wind surged around her. The columns of sand were pushed back to the protective barrier. As the rocks closed in, Toku spun, her claws shining green and her tail pulsing blue. She blurred. When her form resolved, the stones were gray dust falling to the ground like fresh snow. Air rushed around Toku, forming into rapid, invisible armor. Giovanni's pokemon summoned more columns of sand as Toku approached, but she tore through them. A silver glow flashed across the pokemon's body. Both its arms extended, hard with metallic light.
Their collision sent out hairline cracks in the floor. The pokemon's hammer arms faltered against the wind that covered Toku like armor. Her green-fisted claw caught it under the chin.
"Megahorn," Giovanni called out. He was standing. Lance hadn't noticed him get up.
The blow caught Toku in the chest, but she hardly seemed to feel it. She grabbed the pokemon by its horn and heaved it into the air as if it weighed no more than a lump of driftwood.
"Rock wrecker!" The shout came from Giovanni's box. Midair, the pokemon's skin erupted into rocky crests. Energy rippled around it, distorting the shape of the air. Toku surged up to meet it, born up by a tornado of swirling green and red. The room burst with light. For an instant, Lance saw everything illuminated clearly—Giovanni standing at the edge of his box; the watcher in the rafters, straight-backed and silent; the two kadabra with their spoons raised. The light was too intense. Lance shut his eyes.
When he eased them back open, Toku hung alone in the air, panting. Giovanni's pokemon had left a crater several yards deep into the ground, where it now lay slumped. There was a large hole in the ceiling. Sunlight fell through, making a warm yellow circle on the sand. Lance stared up in confusion, then looked around. The blue of the psychic barrier was gone.
"Well." Giovanni's voice was level. Hearing him, Lance wondered if he'd imagined the frantic note in the gym leader's final command. He nodded up at the damaged ceiling. "Jiro was right. You leave quite the impression."
He stepped down from his box and crossed the battlefield—what remained of it. Lance met him, Toku hovering protectively at his side.
"Sorry about the roof," Lance said, even though, in all honesty, he wasn't.
"A hazard of this job," Giovanni answered dismissively. "It seems Jiro wasn't exaggerating your capabilities. I fully expect great things from you, young man." There was an almost triumphant gleam in his eye that Lance didn't know what to make of. Giovanni had lost. Why did he look so satisfied? "You have earned yourself the Earth Badge."
When Lance had tucked the badge away, Giovanni's hand remained outstretched. "A custom we have in my home country," he said, reaching out and lifting Lance's hand in his own. He moved their clasped hands up and down.
"Are you from very far away?"
"Quite far, yes. The journey took two weeks by boat. I spend them in an orange crate." A broad, humorless smile crossed Giovanni's face. "To this day I can't stand the stink of those damn things."
A crate?
But Giovanni's face was a mask that invited no questions. As the gym leader made for the doors, Lance ran his eyes around the stadium one last time. The rafters were empty. Had he imagined . . ?
The receptionist stood waiting for them in the ante-room. She bowed and spoke quickly to Lance, "You forgot your notebook, sir." Lance blinked as she thrust a plain black notebook into his hands. He hadn't—but she had already retreated behind the desk, and Giovanni was facing him again.
The man had half a foot on Lance, and Lance felt every inch of it as Giovanni set a hand down on his shoulder. The gesture was almost fatherly, but Giovanni's smile cut like a knife.
"Great things," he said again.
At 10pm, the nurse politely but firmly told Lance that visiting hours were over. Archer and Kana lay on separate beds in the Pokemon Center room. The aerodactyl hadn't woken since the gym battle, but his breathing was level as he slept, and the purple tinge had all but faded from his skin. Kana was awake, sniffing unhappily at the stiff gauze that had been taped over her wings.
"Kana," Lance said to her, "I have to go now, but I'll be back in the morning. Keep an eye on Archer for me, okay? He's going to be confused when he wakes up. It wouldn't be good if he brought down the building."
Kana nodded, wiggling into a more attentive posture. The task would distract her from her wings, Lance hoped. "And try to leave your wings alone. I know it's uncomfortable, but if you mess with them, they won't heal right."
Back in his room, he sat down on the bed, exhausted. The badge they'd won sat next to the plain black notebook on the bedside table, hastily placed there when he'd returned from the gym battle. Frowning, he picked up the notebook and leafed through. The pages were blank, until he came to the last one, where someone had scrawled, "Iwata Hachi (she goes by Hunter now) is my sister. If you know anything about her, please call me."
A number had been written underneath. Lance stared at the page for a while, blinking slowly. Finally, he set the notebook back down, climbed beneath the bed sheets, and fell into a dream.
Kaisho had called the rain. Lance stood on the rain-slickened shore before a boat, but the sea was too high for the journey home and the air stank of oranges. He turned away, but the waves rose and dragged him down. Water filled his mouth, salty and cold. When he fought his way to the surface, he saw a figure obscured by shadow, watching him from the deck of the boat.
"Help!" Lance called out. The figure watched him in silence and did not stir. He wore all black and a cap hung low over his face. Then the light shifted, and his eyes were green and blue.
Lance woke to darkness. The soft shadows of the room curled around him. He pushed off the covers, which had turned stiflingly warm, and padded to the window. A half-moon shone dimly through the early-morning mist.
"A dream." His words settled into the silence like silt at the base of a pond. Lance shivered, suddenly cold. Dream or no dream, he was sure now.
The watcher in the rafters—had been Archer.