The sun shone brightly through the tree tops, met glistening eyes and a smile so bright and joyous...but for Rose this was but a mask that she had chose to wear, why? Because she cared too much for her friends to let them in on what had happened only an hour ago, quite simply she had just lied, telling them that she was hit on the head by the door. This, of course, was a perfectly reasonable excuse when you're a ditz like her, so the others didn't question any further, but in truth, she really was plagued with conflicting feelings. All the time she kept reminding herself that it was just a nightmare, but it had felt so real, the pain...the adrenaline surge as an escape opportunity came up only to be crushed by the creature's seemingly unlimited power. It was almost enough to put her off the world of a trainer completely...but she'd grown up since the incident when she was a child, this time she wouldn't curl up in a ball and whimper, she'd chase down that fear with a smile on her face all the way...It sounded so easy in her head, but in practice, it was much harder.

David was still cradling his cheek which by now had turned a very nasty purple-ish colour, but Rose couldn't help but feel a twinge of grim satisfaction, the past years had at least toughened her up somewhat. But tough wasn't enough, as Lance had worried about Rose still nurtured dark thoughts of revenge, she had dug up leads in the year she spent hunting, and all but one had turned out to be dead-ends, it all lead to an organisation called Team Rocket, unsurprisingly. Apparently her father had put most of his effort into research of the bond formed between trainers and Pokémon, and more importantly the "evolution" they went through as soon as they entered the presence of humans...she didn't understood it all, one day she might finish her fathers work, but first she would get her revenge. She wasn't a child, Rose knew that revenge wouldn't bring her parents back and would only come back to haunt in the future, but it sure as hell would make her feel a lot better...and anyway, it would be beneficial for the world if she took down a terrorist organisation such as them.

"Roooosey?" Lance whispered, bringing her out of the vivid daydream. "You okay?" She looked up and put on her best fake smile, nodding her head, and walking ahead at a faster place. He must never know...if he did, he'd either try to stop her or follow her through it all...he was stubborn like that, and in the end it would just get him killed. "Any ideas about taking down this gym leader?" She did a quick double-take; she'd managed to completely forget about that.

"I don't know really, I was thinking let Cynn roast them..." David looked back at her that idiotic, goofy grin on his face.

"Is that really the best you've got? She's a gym leader; she's bound to have strategies for taking down fire Pokémon," It was too early in the morning to simply accept statements like that, so she simply got moody.

"Then have you got any better ideas?" she said in a grumpy tone, he kept smiling smugly.

"Sure, why don't you just watch her battle a cocky pyromaniac, they always seem to flood into the gym first, there's bound to be one of them here today, we just need to wait a while." She had to admit, it wasn't a bad plan...since when had he become so smart?

"Hate to admit it but he's got a point," Lance added, stating the obvious as always...oh well, it was better than going in blindly, she guessed. When she looked up half-way through her pout, she found that they had already wondered into the city...and quite frankly she was stupefied by the sight. The early-morning sun poured through the gaps in the trees, rendering the small city in perpetual twilight, which seemed to suit it perfectly. Not only this, but no wonder she hadn't noticed that they'd wandered into the city, the houses themselves were built out of the trunks of trees, draped in all manner of greenery. This place looked as if it had been unchanged for centuries, and like a flower blossoming, slowly unfurling its delicate petals, people began to leave their houses and get on with their daily lives. The inhabitants themselves blended in with the backgrounds, wearing long gowns of emeralds or dresses of similar colours, the only of the group who didn't seem out of place was Lance, for obvious reasons.

"Welcome to Eterna City, the land that time forgot..." David whispered, probably making up that last part to seem poetic or something. Rose nodded, it seemed that she would disturb the tranquillity and glory of the area if she uttered a single word, until a huge get of flame erupted out the side of one of the buildings, causing the more easily agitated people i.e. Rose to jump fifty feet into the air, what with it being about a metre in front of her. After a while, ignoring the sniggering of the others, she dusted herself off.

"That'll be the gym then...shall we?" she asked, trying to act like nothing had happened, walking towards the gym briskly...

***************************************************

The gym leader, apparently called Gardenia, was using this really weird Pokémon, it had one pink flower for a hand and another blue one for the other, not to mention it had a crazy hairstyle, as for the pyro, Rose thought that the Pokémon was called a Charmeleon, but that was only from what she remembered from her school days. But it was pretty viscous looked, belching steams of fire at the grass Pokémon, who seemed to be dodging each one with ease, barely even noticing the singes when she dodged slightly too narrowly...it was as if she was toying with the fire-type. But that was okay, Cynn could create flames at a much greater width than this one could, so she thought that that wasn't too bad...however then, Gardenia gave her Pokémon a quick wink, and it stepped up a gear. Both of the...Roserade! That was it, Rose thought triumphantly. Anyway, something stated to seep out of the petals on its arms, moving in a circle around the Charmeleon in order to dodge the flames. David nudged her.

"The strategy that she's using...it is ingenious; normally stun spore reaches the opposing Pokémon slowly...but here, she's actually using its fire to speed up the rate of diffusion..." After seeing the completely blank look on Rose's face, he sighed, "Just watch," Despite having no idea what most of what he said meant, she knew that stun spore did take forever...but that Charmeleon had already been paralysed!

As soon as the Charmeleon stiffened, the Roserade acted, swift and graceful like a predatory bird, and in an instant the challenger's Pokémon was on the floor twitching slightly...leaving Rose with a whitened face. That hadn't gone as she'd expected...the Roserade was fast, and had managed to take down the enemy in a single blow...she knew that there was no chance of her victory...yet.

"Wow...you guys are fucked," David said bluntly, and Rose, whilst ignoring the urge to make the rest of his face hurt, quietly stood up, grabbed Lance by the arms, and pulled him out of the smoky building.

"Um...well...she wasn't THAT good," he said hoarsely, a little shocked at the thought of fighting the gym leader. Rose swore under breath, trying to frantically come up with a counter-tactic...but each time only came up with one answer, more and more training. "I mean, we could take her...we only ever lost to that psycho-bitch with the Garchomp, and did you see the size of that thing, we could wipe the floor with her..." Rose knew he didn't mean it, Lance obviously understood that there was no chance they could take out something that powerful.

"Ah well..." she sighed, "I guess we'll just have to skip this one...I can't think of anything else..." Lance shook his head, he knew how Rose hated to train on other Pokémon, he didn't particularly see anything wrong with it, but her comfort was the priority here, and anyway, he wanted her to be proud of him, so the easiest way to do that is win these impossible battles.

"Hell no, that's not what we came here to do, we came here to get that badge and we sure as hell are going to, I don't care if I have to face a billion of those pussies, it'll be a piece of cake!" Rose raised an eyebrow at him....before bursting out laughing.

"God Lance...you're such a stubborn, idiotic, imbecile..." she muttered, before wrapping her arms around him tightly, replacing anger with pure confusion, he really didn't understand her at all...and it'd probably be that way all the time. "But at least you're hearts in the right place...well for whatever the hell you are anyway," she added, making both smile warmly. "However...if you end up in the Pokémon centre again I'll make sure you never get out...you got that,"

"You always have to ruin these few hugs don't you," he said grumpily, releasing her and letting the blood flow back through his neck, for such a small girl she sure as hell had a strong grip.

"That's cus' I like making you suffer, you know you deserve it," she said, poking him in the chest, then walking steadily back into the gym, pulling him along with her.

**************************************************

Rose stood on the balcony, looking down at the stadium below, anxiety starting to rise as the preparations for the battle started to rise...she shouldn't have let that stubborn, retarded lizard even think about this... but what's done can't be changed, she'd challenged Gardenia to a one-on-one, and surprise surprise she had chosen her Roserade. It would have been too risky to use Cynn, in her opinion it was too risky to use Lance, they should have just trained a little more...she would have lived with it. But now she was here, she had to focus only on the task at hand...but she couldn't but feel helpless, Lance knew her strategies inside and out so she was really pretty useless now, so it was all up to him.

Lance could feel every ounce of pressure that he had willingly taken on himself, baring down on him like a ravenous Ursurang, but he didn't care, after all the adrenaline had begun to kick in. Thoughts raced through his mind as he stared into the mocking eyes of the sinister Pokémon before him, sure it was an extremely beautiful creature, but from his small time as a Treecko in the forests he had learnt that these creatures were always the most deadly, luring prey to them with their looks and scents. He wouldn't fall for that trick, he'd learnt his lesson the time he had tried to steal the food of a Ralts...so cute, so powerful, so evil.

At the moment, he was at a loss for what to do, most of the techniques that he had developed were simple grass-type ones, which would have little effect on a creature such as this...he needed to be clever....he needed to be sneaky....he needed help in all of those matters. Eventually he just settled on the strategy of staying life and trying to get into close combat...not exactly the most cunning of plans but it'd have to do, as the Gym leader looked like she was ready. After a quick scan of the stadium, revealing very little cover and very little of...well, anything he heard the claxon sound, he'd run out of time for planning.

In an instant the Roserade disappeared and re-appeared straight in front of him with a wicked grin on her face, and Lance took a wicked strike to the stomach followed by a kick which sent him flying into the air, all before he could even react. Realising the vulnerable position he was in, he quickly span in mid-air, the blades on each side of his hand glowing deep emerald as he was engulfed by a swarm of razor leaf. Only receiving minor wounds he dropped to the floor silently and darted off instantly, his right fist glowing a bright red as he prepared a mega-punch, he knew he had caught her off guard but his triumph was thwarted when the image disappeared. A quick 360 revealed what he had feared, he was encircled by a multitude of figures, that bitch had used double team, but when?! His alarm heightened as he saw that all of them were glowing, prepping the beam of light that he knew would eventually come, his heart pumped frantically as he swivelled around trying to detect which one was the real Roserade.

"Lance, use Leer!" Leer? What the hell would that do, but technically she was the boss and he had about ten seconds to find out which one to pummel, so he went ahead and did...and immediately realised which one was right. As he stared intently at the copies, he realised that none of them had the scent of fear that should be present from the lowering of defence...that meant that none of them were the real ones. Alarmed he scanned the room, it wasn't there...but then where was it. "Shit!" He thought. "It's undergro-" The beam engulfed him from below, sending a whole new level of pain flying across his nerves, causing him to let out a cry of agony as he was propelled into the air for the second time by the sheer power of the beam that had hit him, it even pulled up chunks of debris which smashed into him.

Dully, he could here the frightened commands of Rose as she basically told him to get the fuck out of there, "Not very effective," he thought, "My ass!" But as he began to become aware of his surrounding, he was hit by a barrage of multi-coloured leaves sending him sprawling across the stadium and into the stone-cold wall. Lance knew that he was bleeding, by how he was feeling most likely he was bleeding profusely...it would have been so easy to just give up...but he still could hear the cries of his trainer, his friends, telling him to stop, but he knew that in her heart she wanted him to keep going...and that renewed his dwindling mind power. Right up until he felt the needle plunge into his shoulder, followed by the searing pain of venom being injected into his bloodstream, causing him to blackout momentarily...but when he pictured the Roserade's smug smile he didn't care.

Shakily, he pulled himself to his feet, staggering on one-side, realising that he'd done something to his ankle...and apparently his left arm...which wasn't very good. Now though, the pain filtered out what everyone was saying around him...which was a good thing, he didn't really want to hear what Rose was shouting at him now...he just hoped she wouldn't return him. Lance fixed his gaze on the enemy, becoming more and more feral every time he looked at that mocking gaze...no longer was he in a simple gym battle, according to him he was in a life and death scenario, protecting his mate from the claws of another Pokémon. The last rational part of his brain chuckled at the thought of living up to his namesake, before being overcome by the pure hated he felt for the creature in front of him. So, he staggered towards the enemy, dragging his dead leg with him, staring as the enemy made a show of inspecting its flowers...but know...of course that wasn't what it was doing...he felt himself stiffen, knowing that he could no longer move his body, letting out a snarl of anger at the under-hand move.

The enemy's human started calling out to his human, and although Lance couldn't understand what she was shouting any more but his brain told him that she insulting both of them...his pride wouldn't let him stand for it. The enemy had obviously thought that it was the victor, but Lance had other ideas, he thought against every muscle in his body using sheer willpower until he forced them to submit to his desires, breaking each one out of their paralysis one at a time. Free from the bounds of this curse, he sunk to his knees, gasping for breath, the exertion had proved too much, and he knew it... but deep within him he felt a ferocious power screaming to be let out, he let it blossom

**************************************************

Rose stared blankly at the scene, her friend on his knees, injured in more ways that she could have imagined; at the hands of the sinister Roserade...her mind had closed half-way through the battle, there were no tactics that she could think of to counter what Gardenia through at her. The problem was the enemy was just too strong...there was no way it could be beaten with quick thinking alone...and the other one was that Lance wouldn't except it. She'd stayed quiet most of the time in order to preserve his pride...she knew he was doing this for no-one but her, and that he'd keep going until his body physically stopped working. Slowly, Rose reached through into her pocket for his ball, there was nothing left to do other than throw in the towel, he'd done enough and there was no point in continuing, Lance would only hurt himself further.

That was when it started...unnoticeable at first, a few small sparks of energy seemingly rose from the ground, but soon the small sparks became much larger and more visible, beginning to encircle his crippled form. Rose gasped in shock, he'd done this before, almost a year ago; he was evolving...and it struck Rose that the only reason he was doing this was to keep the fight going, such a drastic move for a pointless cause...but that was Lance all over, he was too stubborn to give him. But this time, she wouldn't let him do this, if he wanted to win so badly, he could do it without evolving.

************************************************

Lance smiled as he felt the power surging through him; he felt his wounds heal almost instantly as his body started to morph, now he was going to wipe the floor with the enemy. For a second he was surprised that he was now thinking rationally, as opposed to his feral mindset, so he was evolving again...thoughts about how Rose and the others would react to this flashed through his mind at light speed, but right now the priority was taking out the enemy, and this was the easiest course of action.

"Lance, don't you dare do that!" he paused, the energy still coursing through his veins, restructuring the very D.N.A of his body, that was her voice, but he thought that she wanted to win, surely he was doing a good thing he here. "You're not that weak Lance, you don't have to change to beat this weed!" Weakness? This wasn't how Lance had conceived this action...but when he thought about it, this was just another form of giving up...and when had he ever done that before? As usual Rose was right, he didn't need to do this....she was being harsh to him to get him to prove how good he was...to himself? Damn, for such ditz, she sure was a cunning bitch; he thought darkly, he knew that he had a challenge to complete now.

Lance wasn't sure how to stop what was going on, but he figured he just had to be stubborn, so he pulled himself to his feet, gritted his teeth, and willed his body to stop doing this...and his body complied.

**************************************************

Rose was the first to see the light start to dim, only slightly, but enough to see that Lance had listened, and was still his old self, thank god for that, she thought, she didn't think she could cope with another one of his changes. But then, an idea struck her, the light that still surrounded him was still bright enough to blind the Roserade, so possibly, if Lance was alert enough, they could use this to their advantage.

"Lance, use Body Slam!" Rose shouted, and the light immediately disappeared along with him, for a second she was worried until he was him high up in the air, dropping like boulder towards the stunned Roserade, his wounds healed, ready to kick ass.

************************************************

Lance plummeted towards the ground at a massive speed, he felt completely rejuvenated and ready to take this bitch down, the Gym Leader shouted a command to her recovering Pokémon, which then sent a torrent of leaves in the general direction of him, but he easily dodged all of them with a series of elegant twists of his body, he couldn't resist showing off even in a situation like this. Focusing his attention on the target, he glared into its now fully-functioning eyes, and in that split-second he could see the fear in its eyes, the knowledge that there was no way for it to escape the upcoming injection of whoop-ass coming its way, Lance smiled, and smashed into his prey.

The Roserade was sent crashing onto the rough surface of the stadium floor, the impact had been perfect, and Lance managed to casually flip-off and onto the ground.

"Quick Attack followed by you-know-what!" Rose commanded, a voice now filled with energy and new-found hope. Before the Roserade could do even get fully back on its feet, Lance ricocheted into it, causing it to fly towards the wall, but whilst it was in mid-air, Lance planted his foot into the ground and stood calmly, preparing for his attack, with an all-too knowing grin his face, he knew that he'd won now, the enemy could no longer use its power or speed against him, what with it flying into the wall and everything.

"Roserade, stop it!" Good, he thought, Gardenia was stressed, that meant that this was pretty much over, but he still had to charge his attack up, and if landed a hit on him it'd all be over...again. The Roserade shakily got to its feet and darted towards Lance with frightening speed, most likely using its final pool of energy into the attack that was coming, but it was too late. When it was but a fraction of a metre away from him, he opened his mouth and sent the Solar Beam directly into its face, for the final time sending it across the arena in the brilliance of a torrent of white energy. Lance surveyed the area quickly, and couldn't but smirk at the damage they'd done to the stadium, there were numerous holes in the walls, the entire floor had been ripped up thanks to two Solar Beams and other impacts, it was an entertaining sight to say the least.

Then he looked back at Rose, and gave her a quick thumbs up, laughing at the shocked expression on her face, he couldn't help but feel ecstatic, he was still high on the energy supplied by his un-finished evolution. But the sound of rubble falling to the ground made him turn his head, and he watched in dismay as the Roserade stumbled to its feet, glaring at him with the power of a thousand forest-fires...before toppling over as it blacked out....


*******************************************

"Guess I won't have to go to the Pokémon centre," Lance said smugly, as he graciously accepted a bear of a hug from Rose, who was happy just to see him alive, let alone without a scratch on him. "Admittedly, I thought I was going to lose at one point, but from then on it was just a piece of cake," he boasted, Rose simply sighed.

"You're kidding, right? I'm still going to kick your ass for scaring me half to death out there, you looked like you were about to fall over and die! And when you started to...it was just really god damn frightening, so don't you dare do that ever again," That was as close to a congratulations as he was going to get, so he went with it, instead turning his attention to the form of Gardenia walking up to greet them.

"I've got to admit, that was...one of the most exhilarating battles I've ever had in my life...it takes great restraint and a great bond for a Pokémon to resist the evolution stage, you've probably heard this a great deal, but the bond you two share is something that many trainers aspire to, and its what really give you the edge in combat...you're Pokémon thought for you to the end, for that it must hold you with an extremely high degree of respect...as gym leader of the Eterna City Gym I'm honoured to present you with the Forest Badge...I'm sure you guys won't have any problem with the other leaders, so good luck, anyway, I've got to go to the Pokémon centre, see you!"

"Bye," said Lance, he couldn't help but put a word in, he loved to see people's faces when he spokes to them, it got better every time, her face went from shock to disbelief to understanding. Once she had left Rose was still looking at the pretty, shiny badge, then she turned to Lance.

"Why are you so smug?" she asked, pocketing the badge and smiling evilly. Lance figured that this question was a trap, she was going to say the same thing no matter what he said....he just hoped it wasn't anything too awful.

"Uuuh...because we just got our second gym badge?" he said hopefully, Rose shook her head slowly from side to side,.

"That's not anything to be happy about...for you anyway,"

"Why?" he asked, how could winning be a bad thing?

"It's simple really, that was the second gym leader....the other six are going to be much harder, and then there's the elite four and the champion," Lance's face went from happy to a look of dismay, he knew what she was getting at, and sure enough, "That means that we're going to have to train a lot more and a lot harder, no offence or anything but your pretty weak at the moment, you were nearly taken down by a pretty low-level Pokémon,"

"It was not a damn low-level Pokémon, did you see how damn quick it moved...and technically I did this all without getting damaged at all!" Rose rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, but technically you cheated, you're not going to be able to pull that off every time things aren't going your way, I mean look at these things!" she said, pointing towards his pretty flimsy arms, "What if you had to go against a Feraligator or something like that, you wouldn't stand a chance, so from now on, we're going to have a strict training regime, and you're going to be a damn beefcake at the end of it, whether you like it or not!" Rose almost laughed at the grumpy expression on his face, but managed to instead turn the laughter into mockery, this generally worked a lot better than positive encouragement for Lance, yeah, he was backwards like that. You say something nice he gets fat and lazy, you mess with his ego and he gets into gear...eventually.

"You can't make me!" She'd been hoping that he'd say that.

"Oh...is that so?" she said, doing her best to put on a godfather-ish accent, "I think you'll see things differently, when I show you this," Out of her bag she pulled out the stuffed Mew toy that he slept with every night he wasn't in his pokéball, "Accidents happen, Mr. Lance, Mr Mittens over here may take a little...fall..." Lance's eyes focused intently on the stuffed toy, worry spanning through his entire face.

"Don't, please, I'll do anything...just leave Mittens alone!" He was such a baby sometimes; it was hilarious watching him go from stubborn indestructible idiot, to crying baby in just a few seconds. "Give, it, back!" he shouted before tackling her to the ground, but Rose still managed to hold it just out of his reach, laughing at his failed attempts...Chapter End Notes:Thought I should end things on a high note =)
Sorry for another huge wait, had writer's block for a while and I've been held down by a lot of revision. Had to ask myself whether I would continue this story, as I made other plans for a new ones, but I'm gonna keep going. Oh yeah, I have a lot of free time on my hands atm so if any of you guys have requests for specific things I'll give them a go, if I like how they turn up I'll mak a request thread. Yep, so email em to me or whatever