The tower that stood at the center of Lavender Town had been formed from thick slabs of stone; it rose aslant, the walls rough and somehow wild. Lance took the place for Champion Kikuko's old gym, and it wasn't until he stepped inside that he realized his mistake.

He stood in a dimly-lit lobby. Long, low benches, scattered with dark figures—some sitting up, others sleeping—lined the walls, and the air was clogged with the overlapping scents of sandalwood and cinnamon. In the corner a stand sold flowers, gold-embossed paper, and neatly-bound sticks of incense. A steady stream of people passed between the stand and the staircase that led up into the tower. All wore loose, dark clothing and had an inward, preoccupied air.

An attendant in a black kimono approached Lance as he hesitated in the middle of the room. She spoke in a stiff voice, her eyes fixed on his pokeballs.

"This tower is for mourners, young man. Please do not disturb the spirits of the dead or their ghostly guardians."

"The dead?" Lance repeated, and then he understood. This place was a grave-site. He paled, an apology for his intrusion rising on his lips, but before he could speak it an old woman approached and tugged lightly at the attendant's sleeve. The attendant handed her a thin wooden plaque, carved into a shape that was difficult to make out in the low light. The old woman whispered a hoarse thanks and began to shuffle towards the staircase.

"What is that?" Lance asked. In the Ryu's Gift, the dead were burned. Their remains were mingled with the soil of the innermost valley, and their names spoken each year at the Festival of Ash. Lance had never thought before about how Kanto might honor their dead.

"A rapidash token. It's said that rapidash can travel between this world and the next if they so choose. Mourners write messages to their loved ones on these tokens, praying that the picture holds the potency of the original and might reach the lost spirits on the other side. Still others believe that the ghost pokemon who dwell in this tower read the messages left behind; sometimes the words written there will intrigue them, and they will carry the message themselves."

"Is that true?" Lance blurted out before he could think better of the question. He snapped his mouth shut, feeling strangely exposed.

The attendant looked hard at him. "True? To answer that, I'd need to first pass over to the other side myself. There are things that are beyond true and false, young man. They have their own existence in our spirits." Her face softened, and she held out another rapidash-shaped token. "They say that to the dead, all places are one. If there is someone you wish to write to, here is as good as anywhere else."

Lance took the token gingerly. The wood edges were rough, unfinished.

"Pens are by the stairway," the attendant said, and left on soft-toed shoes as silently as she had approached.

The staircase wound narrowly; the steps were high and unevenly spaced. On the lower floors, Lance saw neat rows of gravestones. People were laying flowers, burning incense sticks, and cleaning the stones with buckets of soapy water. As Lance continued to climb, the arrangements of grave-markers grew more disordered, and the people thinned out. When he found an empty alcove, Lance ducked inside. There were only three gravestones here, dark with the dust and dirt of accumulated years, the inscribed names unreadable. A single window let in muddied light, and the air smelled of old, decaying wood.

Lance sat cross-legged on the floor, turning the rapidash-token over in his hands.

Uncle had never told him that his parents were dead. Gone, he had said, the first time it had occurred to Lance to wonder why everyone else had a mother and a father but he only had an uncle and an aunt. Gone, he had said, and his expression was such—so stiff, so startlingly fragile—that Lance had never found the courage to ask again. But the first time Lance was old enough to join the Festival of Ash, he had stood close by Uncle and heard him whisper Riku when the time came to recite the names of the dead.

Riku, he had said, and two other names that Lance later learned belonged to Uncle's parents. There had been no fourth. Once, he had taken that to mean his mother wasn't dead; now, with sudden darkness, he wondered if Uncle just hadn't considered her worth mourning.

Reciting the names was important, though. Kairyu-ancestors watched over the spirits of the dead and protected them from being devoured in the tearing winds of the beyond-world. But the kairyu couldn't protect spirits that strayed outside the bounds of the Ryu's Gift. That was why the festival was necessary; each year, the spirits heard their names and were reminded not to stray.

If his mother was dead, her spirit had probably wandered far away by now.

To the dead, all places are one.

Lance took up the token again, studying the figure's curved legs, the fly-away tail. Maybe there was some power here. Maybe, if he wrote something, she would—

He didn't know her name, though.

Lance hesitated, pen dangling limply from his hand. Mother of, he began to write, and was forced to stop again, caught between the kanji for Lance and for Wataru. Wataru was the name her spirit would know, but Wataru was a shed-skin, a lie. Could a lie survive the crossing between the worlds?

The anger curled slowly over Lance, like a thick fog rolling in off the water, until he was all but choking on it. He didn't know his mother's name. They'd taken that from him, the way they'd taken everything else.

How was he supposed to know who he was, if he didn't know his own past?

His hand clenched. With sudden, frenzied force, he threw the token across the room, where it hit the gravestone and fell to the ground with a muffled clatter. Lance got to his feet, feeling hot, almost woozy. He sped down the staircase, taking the steps two at a time, and almost knocked over an old man making his laborious ascent. Judgement flashed through the man's eyes, burning into Lance's back.

The outside air was cold but clear of scent. Lance took it in large gulps, panting.

Enough. Enough with dead spirits and the ghosts of the past.

He had come here to face more tangible ghosts.

But Lavender's ghost pokemon didn't seem inclined to face him. As soon as dusk drew in, the air thickened, and the shadows began to move. Down the main boulevard, Lance found gastly lurking behind every stall, looping lazy circles around street lanterns, surfing the wind that blew in cold from the mountains. But whenever Lance drew too close, Toku roaring a challenge, the purple gas retracted like a blown candle and, in a blink, the shadow was gone.

"They're not fighters, boy," an old man commented from a takoyaki stand. It was late, an hour before midnight. Most of the other stalls had closed up, and the street was sparse and lifeless.

Lance turned. "But Champion Kikuko trains ghosts."

"Ah, well, Kikuko's a rare one," the man said. He held out his hand, the gesture so casual that it took Lance a moment to work out what was expected. The old man waited patiently as Lance fumbled with his money purse. Coins in hand, he continued, "If you're really determined to make sport with ghosts, you should stop by her old gym, on block nine. Not all of Kikuko's pokemon followed her to the Plateau, you know."

The gym had no signs or distinguishing features. Lance wandered past it several times, until at last one of the local kids pointed it out in exchange for a quick, wondering pat to Toku's muzzle. He frowned as he took in the gym's outer facade. Everyone in Lavender had spoken of Kikuko with respect, but the gym's disrepair told a different story. The purple paint was soiled, and one window visibly cracked. The door slid open at his touch.

Stepping inside, Lance was hit with the pungent odor of rattata droppings. The air felt warmer than the chilling autumn outside, even though no fires were lit and no heaters hummed. White daylight crept through the unshaded windows, illuminating a small entry-space partitioned off by thin panels, their delicate paper torn. Lance could see through to a larger room, likely the former battlefield.

The room was littered with pieces of old furniture and scattered objects—here a rocking chair, missing one arm; here a cracked clay teapot, incongruously perched on the seat of a wheel-less bicycle. Lance studied the panoply of objects in bemusement. It looked like a hoard of merchants had chosen this spot to dump all their defective wares.

As he bent to examine the teapot, Toku let out a soft rumble. Her antenna had flared, and her eyes flicked warily from one corner of the room to another. Lance felt it too, a stillness to the air that suggested imminent movement. A watchfulness.

The teapot wobbled. Surprised, Lance took a step backwards and smacked into something cold and wet. He spun: a haunter hung an inch from his face, its tongue lolling a bloated, unnatural pink. It cackled as Toku lunged, dispersing into nothing and reforming at the other end of the room.

Lance and Toku exchanged glances. The haunter watched them with startlingly white eyes. It hadn't vanished yet. That was something.

"We're looking for a battle," Lance called out. "What do you think?"

A muffled chuckle rose from behind him, but Lance resisted the urge to turn. The air around the haunter began to vibrate and flash in red and blue. A confuse ray.

"Close your eyes, Toku," Lance warned. She struck out sightlessly with a blast of wind in the direction the haunter had been, but it was already gone. "Behind you!"

The shadow ball was about the size of a melon. It whizzed harmlessly past Toku's head as she winged to the right and sent back another clipped blast. This time, Lance noticed, the haunter didn't dematerialize. It tumbled upwards, spinning in dizzying circles.

Did preparing an attack anchor it somehow to the material world? Lance's eyes narrowed.

"Wait until it builds another shadow ball, then try an aqua tail."

Toku crooned her agreement. She hovered in the air, her tail whipping lazily. The haunter vanished again, reappearing behind Toku's back. Black energy gathered in its hands—

"Now!"

Toku's water whip cleaved through the air, striking the haunter across the face with an audible smack. It let out a high whine, and floated backwards in a bobbing up-and-down fashion that Lance could only describe as a limp. Its body seemed more tangible, too. Preparing an attack and taking one, Lance decided. That was where they were most vulnerable.

Before he could call out a closing command, the furniture in the room began to rattle. The light cut out, as if the windows had been shuttered. Lance ran forward, relying on his memory of where Toku had been. His hand found her smooth scales, and she rumbled reassuringly.

When the lights returned, they found themselves surrounded. Gastly and haunter had formed into a circle around them, so closely packed that their purple and blacks blended into one single ring. The haunter they had been fighting had vanished.

Toku tensed, and Lance dropped his hand to his belt, wondering if they needed back-up, but the seconds ticked into minutes, and the ghost pokemon didn't attack. Their attitude was intent, not menacing, Lance decided. He let his arm fall away from his belt. Catching his change in mood, Toku also relaxed her stance.

Lance studied the silent ring of ghosts again. They'd intervened after Toku hit the haunter. Were they—protecting it?

"Battle's over," Lance said, stepping forward with his hands held carefully away from his pokeballs. "That's the message, right? I'm sorry—I didn't mean to frighten your friend or push him past his limits. We're used to fights that go on longer, but that's our problem, not yours."

There was turbulence in the ring, and then a single haunter emerged. The same one from before, Lance realized. Its gaseous body was vaguely teapot shaped.

"Thank you," Lance said to him, keeping his voice gentle. "It was a good battle. We learned a lot." He raised his gaze to take in the rest of the assembled ghosts. "I hope we can do it again without making anyone uncomfortable. What if you gave me a sign, to show that the battle's over." With sudden inspiration he added, "Like this," and stuck out his tongue.

There was a silence like an indrawn breath. Then the teapot-shaped haunter began to cackle, and the others joined him, until the room was resounding with groaning laughter. The ring broke apart—some ghosts vanished into the furniture, others hung in the air, studying Lance and Toku with bulging eyes. The teapot-shaped haunter floated back towards the teapot, crooking its hand for Lance to follow. Its body merged with the teapot, until only the whites of its eyes were visible.

"Is this your home?" Lance asked, examining the dark-red surface and the long crack down the snout. "It's very nice."

This place was home to all of them, he realized, casting his gaze around the room. All at once, the gym's neglected state took on a new meaning. It wasn't lack of care, but respect for the pokemon that lived here.

After that, Lance returned every few days. The ghosts weren't hardy or persistent fighters—most of the battles ended when Lance's pokemon managed to land a single blow. Some days not a single gastly or haunter was inclined to fight, but they could always be induced to play tag. They particularly enjoyed blinking out of sight just as Archer's jaws snapped shut around them, giggling at the aerodactyl's frustrated roar. But Archer learned: soon he was bluffing with a bite, only to lash out with his spiked tail at the form that had just materialized behind him. Kaisho and the teapot-shaped haunter got on particularly well. A week in, Kaisho began to huff out dark wisps, much to the haunter's excitement. The ghost took on the role of tutor, until Kaisho could manage to spit a shadow ball about the size of an apple. That attack hit the gastly and haunter no matter how discorporeal they were. Lance was sure it would come in handy when they went toe to toe with Kikuko.

One overcast morning, Lance and Toku entered to find the abandoned gym in a state of uproar. Gastly whizzed through the air; haunter spun in whirling sets of two. Lance watched in bemusement from the entryway.

"Did something good happen?" he ventured.

A voice answered him from the far end of the room. "They're shockingly sentimental creatures."

Startled, Lance turned to find an old woman sitting in the broken rocking chair. She wore a simple purple dress, and her eyes were like small black stones.

Kikuko!

While Lance stood at a loss for words, the champion pushed herself to her feet. She approached him slowly, her gengar-headed staff clunking against the floor with each deliberate step.

"Took your time this morning, didn't you," she said. "Sleep in late? Enjoy that while it lasts. You reach my age, you won't sleep at all."

Her laugh came out a harsh murkrow-call. The ghosts joined in, their cackling like a chorus.

Lance remembered himself enough to drop a bow.

"Champion Kikuko," he said, "what—"

"You know my name. But I don't know yours. Someone told me, but I forgot it. Well?"

"Lance. I—"

"Lance? What kind of name is that? If your mother gave it to you, she must be a fool."

His fists clenched before he could stop them. "Where I got my name isn't your business, is it, Champion?" he said, proud that his voice had stayed level.

"Sure isn't. I just want to know where you got that hair. A bottle, I expect."

Lance stared. Behind Kikuko, the gastly and haunter had arrayed themselves like the train of a gown. The teapot-shaped haunter broke away from the others and floated up to Kikuko's head. Its body distorted in a complicated series of shapes, before finally it pointed at Lance.

"Hmph. Clay Teapot claims you've been tolerable," said Kikuko. Her tone suggested that, personally, she had her doubts.

"Is there something you want from me?" Lance said, not managing this time to keep the mounting anger from his voice.

"No," Kikuko said sharply. "You're the one who wants something from me." She jabbed her staff at him. "You want my champiancy. Why?"

"Do I need a reason?" Lance shot back.

"Need? No. It's a free country, with the usual terms and conditions. Not your country, though, is it? Xatu knows where Jiro picked you up. Johto, someone told me. Well, there's plenty of power to grab in Johto, if you're in the power-grabbing business. Ah," she said, tapping her staff against the floor. "It was Giovanni Fiorelli who told me that. He claims you're quite the battler."

Giovanni's name brought a sour taste to Lance's mouth—a flash of crumpled wings and a satisfied smirk. "It's not his country either, is it," he said quietly.

Kikuko flashed him a quick, evaluative glance. "Well, perhaps not. And so, you think Adachi Jiro should take my place. He does have fewer wrinkles—I can't argue with that." She gave another unpleasant chuckle. "Go on, then. You want a fight, don't you? Here I am, ready for a fight."

She wore no pokeballs. But when held out her staff, Lance realized she didn't need them. A shadow oozed from its tapered end and pooled into the form of a grinning gengar. Two haunter split from the bangles Kikuko wore on either wrist. Their dark arms elongated until they had encircled the battlefield. A sharp blue light sprang up, surrounding Lance, Toku and Kikuko in a convex bubble.

To protect the ghost pokemon's homes from the fight, Lance told himself, trying to ignore how the light hemmed them in. Toku stepped in front of him, her antenna flaring.

In the silence that followed, Kikuko's gengar produced a shadow ball in its left hand like a magician pulling a coin from mid-air. A second popped up in its other hand; a third materialized above its head. The gengar began to juggle all three until they blurred, while Lance watched in mounting disbelief. All the haunter he'd fought had needed time to grow their shadow balls. If Kikuko's gengar didn't need that time, how would they be able to strike it?

Without warning, the gengar lobbed the three balls toward Toku: one moving straight, one curving left, one right.

"Send them back," Lance called out.

Before, that would have meant a single, massive twister from Toku. But Koga had taught them to be more precise. Toku beat her wings, summoning three miniature vortexes. Each trapped a shadow ball and sent it spinning back. Just before they impacted the gengar, the ghost vanished.

Predictable, thought Lance. Toku knew how to handle this. She reared around, her fist blazing with dragonfire, except that when the gengar rematerialized, it wasn't behind her.

It was above.

The shadow ball sent Toku reeling back. Snorting, she caught her bearings and sent a whip of water lashing up through the air. Lance expected the gengar to vanish again, but it stayed in place, grinning.

And Toku's aqua tail missed. The water whip hit empty air and splattered limply onto the floor, wetting the wood like a wayward burst of rain. Toku fluttered backward, her puzzled expression mirroring Lance's.

The gengar still hadn't moved.

"Dragon claw," Lance tried. Toku lunged forward, both fists glowing. Again, the gengar stayed visible. It flitted between Toku's blows with ease, a gaping grin still fixed on its face and widening as Toku's movements grew more and more frenzied.

Something was wrong. Was the gengar really moving that quickly? Or was it that each time Toku's claws neared its shadowy body, the angle of her attack changed just enough to go wide of her mark. And . . . His eyes narrowed. The blue glow cast by the protective bubble had tinted Toku's scales the sickly green of corroded copper, but Lance thought he saw another shade overlayed—a pinkish gloss coating Toku's scales.

A psychic attack!

But to use psychic energy like that . . . the few psychic pokemon Lance had fought used their power like a blunt hammer, a pushing wave of energy that could either attack or repel. This was far more subtle and controlled, and the implications set his heart pounding. Toku couldn't beat what she couldn't hit.

"Enough, Toku! That's not going to work. Try a dance."

She drew back, avoiding a parting shadow ball, and began to loop easily through the air. With each somersault, her body gleamed more brightly, until the warm light chased both pink and green off her scales.

Kikuko tapped her staff twice against the ground. The gengar raised its stubby arms; shadow overtook the floor like a flood of tar. Gengar-shaped figures formed out of the dark morass and hurled themselves up towards Toku with unsettling speed.

"Full twister!" Lance shouted.

The blast tore into the tarry shades, rupturing them into chunks. But those chunks of shadow sought each other out like water droplets on a leaf, until they had reformed. The gengar shades advanced again as if Toku's attack hadn't even occurred.

They'd have to hit the real thing, Lance decided, gritting his teeth. As Toku splattered gengar-shade after gengar-shade, he scanned the battlefield until he found Kikuko's gengar, camouflaged by the dark purple of the shadow patch. The edges of its body looked distinctly solid, at least: maintaining this attack must be keeping it anchored.

Lance waited until the progress of Toku's mid-air fight brought her above the gengar. Then he called out, "Aqua tail down!"

Toku didn't bother looking. Her tail slashed through the air the instant Lance had finished speaking. The gengar twisted its eyes up, extended one stubby hand into a massive fist . . . and caught the water whip.

The shades receded and the pool of shadow vanished. Pink light, more distinct now, ran from the gengar's fist up the stream of water, onto Toku. The moment hung in a tableau. Then the gengar brought its arm down. Toku had no time to break away; she hit the ground with a heavy thump.

Lance flinched at the impact. The gengar re-materialized over Toku, who lay prone. Not enough time for a dragon claw or enough momentum for an aqua tail. And the angle was all wrong for a twister—

Koga's lesson first lesson came back to Lance. The arbok should remember its time as an ekans, and the kairyu—her time as a miniryu.

He called out a move that Toku had not resorted to once since her evolution. "Thunderwave!"

Her eyes snapped open. Static rippled up her tail, trapping the gengar in a prism of snapping and popping electricity. Lance grinned, and Toku's snout curled in satisfaction. She winged up from the ground, her claw glowing with green dragonfire—

"Lick it," said Kikuko.

Pink and somehow wet, the tongue lolled from the gengar's mouth and caught Toku under the chin. Her body stiffened; her arm went limp, the green light extinguishing. Before Lance could speak, the gengar had darted forward and grasped Toku's head, tilting it until their gazes met. Its eyes throbbed with a pure, pulsing red, so intense that Lance found he couldn't look away.

The flap of Toku's wings slowed and then ceased. Her eyes fell shut. Lance inhaled sharply as she hit the ground again, still as a sunken stone.

But the gengar wasn't finished. Its shadowy arms once again clasped Toku's head, almost tender. The air became sweet, redolent with a scent very much like blossoming koiking grass. Gold light collected around Toku's antenna, then flared out, filling the room with a bright haze that seemed to ripple with images. Lance made out the Ryu's Gift as if from a great height, every valley quilted with red and orange blossoms. He blinked, and now he was surrounded by fellow kairyu. Their welcoming croons morphed into horrified rumbles. He—Toku looked down.

Her claws were bright with blood.

"No!" Lance heard his own thin shout as if from a distance. He plunged into the cloud of gold; a numbness at once seized his body. "No, that's not yours, you have no right—"

"That's enough, Staff. This is a friendly fight."

Kikuko hadn't raised her voice, but when she spoke, the vision cut out. The room grew dark again, and the fragrance of blossoming plants gave way to the bitter tang of old wood. The gengar somersaulted away, bits of gold clinging to its mouth like the remnants of a tasty stew. Trembling, Lance cradled Toku's head in his lap. She was still gripped by unnatural sleep; under her closed eyes, her scales were wet.

Clunk.

Clunk, clunk.

Lance heard Kikuko's approach, but didn't acknowledge it. A long moment passed before she spoke.

"Go home, boy." Her dry voice was neither mocking nor triumphant and somehow that neutrality made it all the more terrible. "Go home, and stop meddling in what you don't understand."

Lance knelt there long after the hollow clunk of her walking stick had faded away. Long enough that Clay Teapot floated out from the shadows and licked him cautiously, as if checking for signs of life. Toku stirred in his arms. She blinked fogged green eyes and let out a mournful croon.

"You're wrong," Lance said to the silent room. The haunter and Toku both flinched at the harsh rasp of his voice. "We don't have a home. And we're not going back."

He noticed his hands were shaking, but at least—at least his eyes were dry.

"Don't sound so glum, Lance!" Jiro's bright voice poured over the phone line like a balm. Lance imagined him throwing out his arms expansively as he spoke. "Honestly, it might have been for the best. You know what you're up against now, and Kikuko will be complacent. She'll think, I've beaten him once, I can do it again."

"Would she be wrong?" Lance said in a low voice.

"I beat you once. Do I beat you every time, these days?"

That drew an involuntary smile from him. "Only when you cheat."

"Substitution is not cheating, it's strategy. And strategy is how you'll beat Kikuko. Come back to Saffron! We've still got a month left before the hustings and anyway, you've got an appointment."

Right. Lance had almost forgotten about that.

The immigration office was stuffy, overheated, and smelled faintly like the spoiled remains of someone's forgotten katsu don. The clerk assisting Lance had an air of limitless exhaustion, but she was kind enough, and didn't blink when he told her that the name he wanted didn't match the name on his visa.

There were some questions to answer first. Lance obediently recited back the date of the Hoennese invasion, the start of the Thirty Years War with Johto, the signing of the Compact of Flame. He told her that the Unified Clans of Fuschia held 'limited sovereignty,' as Koga's grim face flashed through his mind.

"Congratulations, Lance," she said at last, stamping a final form. "Expect your official ID in ten to fourteen days."

As he stood, surprised by how exhausted he felt after doing nothing more than sit for the past three hours, she added, "Welcome home."

The words, spoken mechanically but not without a vein of sincerity, staggered him. He murmured something incoherent in reply, bowed, and bolted for the waiting room, where Jiro sat with a celebrity magazine, his sunny-day yellow scarf a beacon against the gray walls. When he caught sight of Lance, his face split into a grin.

"Everything go well? Excellent." He steered Lance out of the building and into the dusk of early evening. "You must be starved; I know I am. I thought we could check out the new Kalosian restaurant that opened in the east end. I've heard rave reviews, though if you're in the mood for something less rich, Chef Nozawa always saves a seat for me, even though the lines at his place have gotten outrageous. We could—"

Lance poked him in the side, cutting off the stream of words. "Could we go somewhere not fancy? Somewhere quiet?"

Jiro's eyes softened. "Of course we can. It's your celebration, not mine."

They settled on a home-style cafe, neglected next to a booming soba shop. The owners realized who Jiro was halfway through the meal and after that became exceedingly attentive, fluttering to the table with "free sides" and waiting anxiously as he tried each one and obliged them with an effusive compliment. Still, the food was warm and hearty, and Lance found himself relaxing, lulled by Jiro's chatter. He seemed determined to catch Lance up on Saffron's latest goings-on, never mind that half of it involved people and places Lance still only vaguely recognized. When their plates were clear, Lance slipped outside, leaving Jiro to fight with the owners over his extravagant overpayment.

It was a typical Saffron night. Lance breathed in the smoggy air, remembering something he'd told Jiro when they first met. Too gray and too dark, too smelly and too dirty. None of that had changed, and Lance doubted it ever would. He fit uneasily into Saffron's maze of gray buildings, its claustrophobic avenues and always-on lights. It wasn't the home he would have chosen.

But it was the home that had chosen him, and that had to mean something.

Lance tilted his head, staring at one of the streetlights until it blurred into a star.

Maybe it meant everything.