#Lys *tells* Alan to keep an eye on her and Manon wants Alan to train her so SHE can help her papa's ''peaceful purposes'' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

flyswhumpcenter · 5 years

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Found You in the Woods - Chapter 1

NEXT CHAPTER

Summary: Even if Manon was searching for Alan near some woods yet again, she truly didn't expect to find him lying on the ground in the middle of the leaves fallen from the trees. (or: Manon proves she's so much more than some potential burden and Alan is a stubborn idiot, but that's why we love them)

Fandom: Pokemon (Anime, post Kalos arc) Ships: Marissonshipping (Alan/Manon)

Wordcount: 3K words

Notes: I can't believe I got dragged into Pokemon again, but I especially can't believe I got dragged into another ship too. Thanks, Azure. Jokes aside, I got this idea as soon as I watched the second part of the Mega-Evo special?? It was quick and painless, but impressive nonetheless.

AO3 version available here.

They’re used to travelling alone together. Manon and her fellow Chespie, she means: she wishes they’d be three, but Alan has this terrible tendency to refuse travelling with her for a reason she cannot quite put her finger on. It’s frustrating, but that’s how things are.

Now, that doesn’t mean she isn’t trying to get back to him… She’s gone in the same direction than him and asked people where he had gone, so she can’t be that far from him. She’s going to find him again, and this time, he won’t be able to refuse!

They’re walking by the side of a cliff, whose side she hopes not to slip on and roll over, when she notices something peculiar in the sky. While they’ve been distracted by the chirping of some Pokemons flying around, they were all native to the region and logically found near woods and cliffs to feed. These are mostly small creatures flying around to steal Trainers’ food and defy each other in aerial battles with no referee, nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it’s nice to see such a show when they’ve mostly been journeying through forest after forest.

And that’s why she can’t really reasonably expect a Charizard to show up from literally nowhere near them, its orange scales fiercely soaring through the blue, sunny sky of warmish early summer days.

At first, Manon stops in her tracks, faces the cliff and wonders why a Charizard could possibly have ventured near them. Perhaps its Trainer is somewhere nearby, and that they’re taking a break? It could be the case: after all, she isn’t the only one to be travelling across the Kalos region, so she shouldn’t be that surprised to see the dragon-type prevent itself from getting too cramped up in a tight space where it can’t fly.

But here’s the catch: that Charizard has a familiar-looking necklace, a piece of jewellery she has already seen somewhere else before and truly rings something to her mind. The lack of a shiny Mega Stone makes her doubt her theory at first, but in the end, the collar is too unique for her to pass up: this is none other than Alan’s Charizard, and she gets excited the moment she realizes that Alan must be nearby for his most trusted companion to be here, almost face-to-face with her.

“Chespie”, she addresses the Chespin now on her shoulder, “it’s Alan’s Charizard! Let’s follow it, I’m sure it knows where he is!”

Her own companion nods his head positively, so her heart gets even more ecstatic. This is a great day! Beautiful weather, comfortable silence, gentle breeze, and a chance to find her best friend again. If she does, he’ll have to admit she can completely find her way on her own just fine and is entirely ready to travel with him and improve herself as a Trainer.

Chespie climbs back onto her shoulder as she runs after the Charizard flying nearby. While she follows it, she starts realizing it is much slower than she originally thought: is it its break from training with Alan, or is there something else to it? Maybe it’s just tired, even if it’s just the morning… Perhaps these two have been training together all night, or very late into the night, and it wants to prove a point by disobeying and taking a nap elsewhere? Wait, no, that doesn’t make much sense… Charizard has always been very obedient and loyal to Alan no matter their hardships, while would it just leave him for something as minor as a nap? That’s one more reason to follow it: maybe she’ll know what’s wrong if she tracks Alan’s trace and asks him.

Charizard keeps getting slower, as if getting fatigued. She can finally look at its face: it has worried eyes, its otherwise fierce glaze stuck in either daydreaming or foggy concern, nothing like what she’s seen from it before, ever. Worry starts rooting into her own chest: she has an awful presentiment about it all, she can just feel it, and it pesters her into running faster and faster, until she’s out of breath and has to stop in dead in her tracks, pained at the idea of having to give up on following the dragon to its Trainer because she doesn’t have enough stamina to go through with the idea. Goshdarnit!

Manon lets herself lean against a tree, back gliding down it until she’s sitting on the ground, frustrated with herself and frustrated with how much she can’t run at her full speed to the end of the world would she need to. Crossing her arms around her knees and pulling her legs towards her torso, she sulks in frustration at how nature is.

That is, until Charizard lands right in front of them.

Saying she’s kind of confused is an understatement. The Pokemon seems to have recognized it: its eyes are staring directly at hers, without any curiosity or hostility. Chespie doesn’t seem fazed either, poking at her arm. It’s obviously an invitation to climb on its back, but that doesn’t feel quite right, doesn’t it? Why would Alan’s Charizard be looking for her in any way, shape or form? Overthinking has never been her specialty, so she jumps on the dragon’s back, Chespie on its head, and they fly away, far away from there maybe. There’s only one real explanation as to why she got suddenly so eager to jump on some Pokemon’s back: the quickest way to Alan was through his own trusted companion who could, as opposed to her pained feet, carry itself and others easily to places she would have never been able to access on her own anyway.

Charizard flies in the opposite direction Manon has seen it fly in previously, as if going back to where it originally came from. So the Pokemon has been near Alan recently enough to easily come back to him: this really seems to be the quickest way to find her friend again! What a lucky gal she’s been on this one, her nose truly never mistakes her ever (except when it does)!

“Here I come, Alan!” she finds herself screaming, wishing she could rise her hands in the air to show her happiness and success, but instead Chespie tries to do it for her, and it’s great.

After a few minutes (or so she thinks? It’s unclear, and she’s always been fairly impatient) of flying around, Charizard lands on a bit of land in contact with the canyon, right in front of some woods she’s never seen before. They look rather thick, but Manon’s been known and famed for her good sense of orientation and capacity to find her way out of impossibly tangled situations. She isn’t afraid by the idea of going into those woods, it’s been her daily life for a while now. Glancing at Chespie to judge by his reaction, he seems to agree with her as he nods to her silent question.

It’s a good coincidence, considering Charizard starts entering the little forest, tail encouraging them to follow it through the range of trees. She can’t even fathom why Alan would get himself lost in the woods like that: she very much doubts he’d ever be able to find any Mega Evolution-related stones in the soil rooted with hundreds of different trees. They usually visited caves and mines because of that, before he tried dumping her again for some reason she’s forgotten the details of since then, aside that it made her angry yet again. She was responsible enough to travel with him, get better as they went along, but… he kept saying she wasn’t ready. Why? He never even explained her why he thought that…

The woods are calm, serene, with a few bug Pokemons glancing at their little impromptu group, no big deal made out of anything. Manon’s never been scared of bugs: they’ve always been a part of her life, since trekking in the forest usually involves finding “pesky nasties”. Instead, she enjoys walking around, following the large, orange dragon with an odd necklace, certain to find her friend again at the end of the path. Surely nothing can go wrong on such a sunny day, right?

Manon glances at Charizard’s face from time to time, as she’s faster than it. She’s not the best at reading Pokemons’ faces, but she can tell there’s something wrong with it. She’s always seen it so confident, so proud by Alan’s side, so she cannot bring herself to think there can’t be something at least a tiny bit wrong. Perhaps it did get lost and hopes it can bring it back to its Trainer? That’d mean she has an Alan-radar in her head, and she really isn’t certain about that; otherwise, she’d have found him in a much shorter span of time. Chespie doesn’t seem as perturbed as she is by the other Pokemon’s expression, but still climbs on her shoulder.

“Chespie,” she tells her fellow companion, “I think there may be something wrong with Charizard. I wonder what it is…”

The Chespin, as if he understood her, immediately looks at the dragon’s face behind them. He shakes his arms and nods.

“So it ain’t just me, then…”

She’s worried, all of a sudden.

And just as quickly as she got excited to follow this Charizard around, Manon gets worried about what can possibly be up with Alan. Maybe they got split in the woods, and Charizard was looking for someone to help him out of some hole or trap? It’d only be retribution for her to help him out when he’s helped her before… After all, doesn’t she just want him safe, out of any danger life could be throwing at him in arduous times like this? Perhaps she’s needed. That could be the perfect opportunity to prove to him she’s dependable and not a… weight on his feet he needs to drag around everywhere he goes…

The little group eventually finds themselves in a… Actually, it’s not any specific part of the woods. It’s still trees upon trees in disorganized rows, but aside from the fact there is very little activity around the place, it’s ordinary and Manon really can’t tell why Charizard has brought her there. No, really, there’s nothing coming to her mind that makes her emit any hypothesis as to why they’re here and not in any other part of the woods. Perhaps Charizard just got lost and doesn’t dare tell Chespie and her that it got them lost? She wouldn’t be too angry at it, not everybody has her instinct in forests. It’s not like Alan brings them often in woods anyway.

But then she looks at its face again, and it hasn’t changed. In fact, the dragon still looks concerned, and that’s when the reddest of flags is risen for her.

Speaking of which, it’s only now that she realizes this: if Charizard isn’t lost and did bring them where it wanted them to be, where’s Alan? He’s nowhere to be found. She’d hear his footsteps in the cracking leaves if he was walking around, which she’d assume he’d do. Maybe he’s brooding sitting on a rock like a statue? That’s totally an Alan thing to do, right? Well then, too bad there isn’t a single rock that’s standing out in this place, because it’d have made things much easier. Chespie and she then look up: maybe he’s in the trees. But alas, there’s also very much no Alan to be spotted amongst the green leaves and few bug Pokemons hanging around the place. This is starting to look like a joke, a joke Manon really doesn’t want to take a part in. She’s worried and nothing is here to relieve her, it seems.

And then she spots some kind of informal black form somewhere amongst the leaves.

Curious and slightly reminded of Alan’s very emo way of dressing (that’s what they call “emo”, right?), she walks up towards it, intrigued. It’s quite the unusual sigh in a forest like, all greens and browns and then you see a black thing on the ground, barely rising from the leaves… There’s another odd thing about this shapeless thing: the closer she gets to it, the louder a breathing noise is to her ears. That’s… that’s pretty terrifying to think about. Maybe it’s her own breathing, though, even if it sounds somewhat familiar yet estranged from her own self. It’s not Chespie’s, and Charizard has barely moved… And it sounds human. Oddly, eerily human.

The realization hits her like Charizard’s Thunder Punch right in the face.

This form… is Alan.

She runs as if she has never been fatigued from running before to it (him?) just to verify her hypothesis, just to prove herself wrong, that she’s simply paranoid and wanting to find her friend again very much. She’s trying to reassure herself, that it’s just a hunch, that she’s just hearing her own breathing and gets panicked because she’s already concerned. Alan wouldn’t be there in the middle of the woods, right? Perhaps Charizard brought her to someone else while he’s gone to get some rescue and help. It’s just her, it’s just her mind, it’s just her thoughts racing at uncountable miles per hour, it’s all her, it’s all in her head…

And then Manon’s foot arrives right before the form, and she recognizes Alan’s body face down against the ground, surrounded by dead and drying leaves.

She drops to her knees, both in shock and inhumane reflexes she never knew she had until now. She rolls him on his back, a mere wish not to see him eat the dirt. Her hand is trembling on his shoulder, her mouth can’t close anymore, and she wants to cry in concern; but she cannot because she’s promised him to be strong, to be strong enough to be with him without being his burden, so she shakes her head and keeps on doing what she thinks she should be doing right now.

Alan looks like he’s fast asleep, at first. She’s relieved to know he’s still breathing, even if she should have expected him to survive the toughest challenges in life. However, she quickly notices there has to be something more to it than mere sudden sleep syndrome: he’s always been a strong guy, he wouldn’t fall asleep suddenly and in such a weird place. His eyes are closed, sure, but they look more shut than closed, and she realizes it’s because he’s not asleep: he’s unconscious.

That’s bad. He has a deep frown on his face, similar to when he hurt his shoulder when sheltering her from debris a while back. No, no, that’s terrible…

“Alan? Alan, what’s wrong?!” She calls to him, in vain, in a hope he wakes up and explains her what’s not right with him. He obviously doesn’t reply, doesn’t wake up, and her stomach churns.

Manon shakes her head again. She needs to keep her calm and see what’s truly wrong: if he won’t or can’t tell her, then she’ll guess herself. She takes off her hat and puts it under his head as an improvised pillow (it’s probably not comfortable, but it’ll do for now); then studies his face in more details. If he looks this pained, something must be hurting him, right? However, when she checks his different limbs, she can’t find any injury or even a stain of dirt: there’s simply no sign he injured himself, and while that’s a good thing for him, but it’s not for her, since it doesn’t give her any answer, she can base herself off.

While she does so, as she inspects his hands by looking to see if his palms got bruised or wounded, she realizes something bizarre: usually, Alan’s skin is naturally cool, perhaps because he isn’t very hot-blooded like she tends to be. This can’t be a good sign, especially when she sees sweat pearling on his face and dripping down his temples to the ground. It dawns on her again, as she lets out a tiny gasp, and she puts her hand on his forehead to get a feel for his temperature.

Sure enough, she turns out to be right: he is feverish.

Manon finally understands why Charizard has brought her here, just as it gets closer to her and stays by its Trainer’s side. There settles panic in her head: what’s she supposed to do, now?! She isn’t a doctor, she isn’t a nurse, there’s no Pokemon Centre nearby, they’re in the middle of the woods, Charizard can’t carry the three of them and she sure cannot carry Alan by herself… As she scrambles for shards of what ideas as to what to do, she realizes she can just ask Charizard why Alan may have asked it to do before she arrived there.

“Charizard,” she glances up at her friend’s partner with earnest eyes, and it looks back at her with similar irises, “can you try reaching the nearest Pokemon Centre and get some help from there? It may be a while away, but… that’s the one way I know how to help your Trainer!”

The dragon nods, seemingly in agreement, and takes off through the trees. She doesn’t have much time to wonder about why it now decided to do so (perhaps because it wasn’t sure of the way to come back to Alan otherwise?), since her eyes instantly dart back to Alan’s rising-and-downing chest.

She takes off her scarf with the intention of dumping it in some water and attempt bringing comfort to her ill friend, but instead, she realizes she has no way to freshen it for him. There’s no river nearby she could send Chespie to, and she has no Pokemon on her that have any Water-type move. As far as she knows, not even Alan has one on him at the moment, so she’s stuck waiting here, wondering what she could do for him.

As it stands, Manon has no real answer to the problem, so she retains her tears and hopes for him to wake up soon as she puts his head on her lap instead.

#pokemon #pokemon (anime)#pokemon xy #sickfic #hurt comfort #marissonshipping #mairin (pokemon)#alain (pokemon)#chespie #alan's charizard #otp: charizard boi and chespin gal #fic: found you in the woods

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sage-nebula · 7 years

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ryttu3k replied to your post: In the AU where Lysandre and Sycamore were friends...

The ‘Lysandre needs to be punched even more than he does in the actual anime canon AU’? :p

Hahaha, that is a bit wordy, but it isn’t inaccurate. I mean, really---

As two agents of Team Flare led Champion Stone and Manon to a small room where she could stay while her chespin recuperated (“recuperated” might have been a better way to put it, but Lysandre had always felt that air quotes were juvenile), Augustine turned back to Lysandre, his gaze hard. It was, Lysandre thought, possibly the fiercest he had ever looked, though Lysandre couldn’t say that his anger was much more intimidating than Alan’s. If Alan was as intimidating as an angry charmander, then Augustine was a rockruff trying to pass himself off as a lycanroc.

“Come with me,” Lysandre said, and he gestured for Augustine to follow him down the hall, in the opposite direction from where the Flare agents had led Champion Stone and Manon. “We can talk along the way. What did you want to discuss?”

As he had when Lysandre had first found him standing in the corridor and asked him what he was doing there, Augustine opened his mouth to reply, took a breath instead, and closed it for a moment before responding. He was choosing his words carefully, and that Lysandre could appreciate. Only fools plowed ahead without thinking the matter through, and despite what his taste in fashion suggested, Augustine had never been a fool.

“I thought I made that clear a few moments ago. I want to talk about Alan. Where is he?”

Augustine had made that clear, having followed ‘I need to speak with you’ with ‘Where is Alan?’, but Lysandre had sidestepped the question with Manon’s unwitting assistance (for sobbing ten-year-olds were difficult for most people to ignore, much less Augustine Sycamore), and had hoped that feigning ignorance would cause Augustine to back down or avoid the topic himself. But luck, it seemed, had decided not to favor him in this instance, and so he pretended to consider the question a moment before he answered.

“I’m not certain. He may be in the medical bay, given that his charizard no doubt needs rest after the gauntlet they just ran. He may be gathering supplies for his journey. He might have already left. I lost track of him after I was informed of the situation surrounding Manon’s chespin. He could be anywhere, really.”

“But he’s here.” It wasn’t a question, and Lysandre glanced to his right to see that Augustine had not only fallen into pace beside him, but that he was staring up at him with an unwavering stare. “You may not know exactly where he is, but you have a general idea.”

“He may not be here,” Lysandre said. “He might have already left.”

“Even if he has, you know how to contact him. You’ve always known how to contact him.”

Once again, Augustine wasn’t asking, and now Lysandre could hear a faint tremble in his voice. By this point they had reached Lysandre’s office, yet although Lysandre opened the door and gestured for Augustine to enter, Augustine stopped just outside the entrance, his fingers curled into fists. Lysandre frowned, as much at the pose Augustine struck as his defiance. Lysandre knew that Augustine and Alan weren’t actually related, but right then the resemblance was uncanny.

“What is it, specifically, that you want?” Lysandre asked.

“I want to know why you lied,” Augustine said, and this time his response was immediate, sharp, as if it had been burning on his tongue. “You knew where he was and what he was doing this entire time, and yet you---”

“I never lied to you,” Lysandre interrupted.

Augustine huffed a laugh of disbelief. “That, itself, is a lie.”

“No, it isn’t.” A thread of annoyance coiled through him, though Lysandre kept his voice even. “You never asked if I knew where Alan was, or if I had heard from him, and as such I never told you that I didn’t. I never lied to you.”

“Lies by omission are still lies, Lysandre. Surely you’re smart enough to realize that. I know you are.”

Lysandre glanced over Augustine’s head. The corridor was empty save for the two of them, but Lysandre hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t know specifically where Alan was. The last thing he needed was for Alan to wander into the hallway with Augustine standing right there. He gestured into his office.

“Semantics aside, it’s poor decorum to argue in the middle of a hallway. Come into my office if you wish to continue this conversation.”

Augustine glared at him for a moment more, yet then turned and entered the office. Lysandre allowed himself a small smirk at Augustine’s back as he stepped in and shut the door behind him. The moment the door snapped shut, Augustine turned back to face him, and Lysandre made sure his smirk was gone the moment their eyes met.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Augustine demanded. “You knew how worried I was about him. You’ve known since he first went missing---though he was never truly missing, was he? He was working for you. You brought him on as your employee, and yet you never told me. Despite all the times I brought him up, you never said a word. Why?”

“I didn’t believe it was relevant,” Lysandre said, and once again Augustine’s expression was aghast. “You never asked, and I tend not to go into my employee roster with people not affiliated with Fleur-De-Lis Laboratories.”

“Your employee---? Lysandre,” Augustine laughed incredulously, “he isn’t just another employee on your roster, he’s my son---”

“He isn’t your son.”

“Yes, he is,” Augustine snapped, and if he had looked fierce before, that was nothing compared to how he looked now. Lysandre was almost impressed. “He is in all the ways that matter, and you know that. You had no right to keep this from me. You have no right to do any of the things you’ve done.”

Lysandre took a deep breath to give himself a moment to think, and crossed his arms. “Even if you do consider him to be your son,” he said slowly, “that doesn’t give you the right to be informed about every aspect of his life. Alan’s business is his own, and I did not---nor do I---need your permission to employ him here.”

“This isn’t about whether or not you needed permission, and you know that as well, so stop deflecting.”

“I’m not deflecting. The matter we’re discussing is whether I was wrong in not telling you about Alan’s service here, and my point is that I wasn’t. You never asked, and even if you had, it isn’t up to me to keep you informed of Alan’s business. He’s capable of making his own decisions---”

“He’s a teenage boy---”

“He’s an experienced trainer, and as such there is nothing wrong with me employing him,” Lysandre said, though in truth Alan hadn’t been that experienced when Lysandre had brought him on. He hadn’t been a rookie, to be sure---he had given Lysandre’s Flare agents more than enough of a hard time to prove that much---but compared to Lysandre, he practically had been. Nonetheless, it was nothing that rigorous training for both him and his then-charmeleon hadn’t been able to fix, and if the mega evolution gauntlet he had just conquered was anything to go by, he was more than experienced now. If anything, perhaps Alan’s charizard was a little too strong for Lysandre’s liking.

“There’s something wrong when he drops out of contact for two years, coincidentally right around the time he must have entered your service,” Augustine said. “There’s something wrong when he was only thirteen when you employed him, he’s only fifteen now, and yet he’s apparently risking his life on a regular basis. Steven Stone told me what happened in Hoenn. He told me that Alan nearly died.”

Ah, and there it was---the missing link for how Augustine had found out in the first place. Lysandre cursed himself for not seeing it coming, though in fairness to himself he didn’t know how he could have. He hadn’t pegged Champion Stone as a gossip (although, he thought, perhaps he should have---it always was the pretty ones, after all), and even if he had, he wasn’t aware that Augustine knew him. There was no way he could have known that Champion Stone would call Augustine the moment he was out of Lysandre’s sight, but he still couldn’t help but want to kick himself for not nipping this problem in the bud when he had the chance.

“He didn’t nearly die,” Lysandre said. “He was an asset in---”

“How would you know? According to Steven, you weren’t there, and you never asked after his condition once he was injured,” Augustine said, and Lysandre scowled at his interruption. “Speaking of injuries, Steven and Manon also told me that he injured his shoulder prior to the battle that nearly killed him. How is his shoulder doing? Did he have it treated?”

“I didn’t think it necessary,” Lysandre said, and Augustine glowered at him. “He said he was fine.”

“He’s fifteen, Lysandre. You are an adult. When he sustains an injury like that, you shouldn’t take his word for it.”

“So I should regard him as a liar? I should disrespect his thoughts and feelings in favor of what I believe is best?”

“That isn’t what I’m saying. Don’t twist my words.”

“Then don’t condescend to me about how I treat my subordinates.”

“He isn’t your---!” Augustine began hotly, but he cut himself off mid-sentence, and took a deep breath through his nose. It truly was the most angry Lysandre had ever seen him, and he had to admit; now that Augustine had been riled up, he did look a bit more lycanroc than rockruff at the moment. Just a bit. “You have a way to page the employees who work here, don’t you? Call him. I want to see him, and I want to make sure his shoulder is properly taken care of.”

“His shoulder is fine.”

Augustine glared at him. “We’ll see. Call him.”

“With due respect, Augustine, I don’t follow orders from anyone,” Lysandre said, and he returned Augustine’s glare in kind. “Not even you.”

“With due respect, Lysandre, I am not in the mood to play,” Augustine said. “Forgive me for not framing my request as politely as I could have, but my son is injured, and I haven’t spoken to him for two years. I need to see him, and you know how to contact him. Considering you have lied to me about his whereabouts and activities for the past two years, and actively led me to believe he was missing, I believe you owe it to me to summon him here so that I can see for myself that he is all right. So, if you would be so kind, call him, please.”

Augustine’s voice was taut and brittle; despite his polite language, his request wasn’t much of a request at all. But Lysandre could see that he wasn’t about to back down, and there were no real deflections left open for him any longer. With a sigh, Lysandre strode over to his desk and picked up the receiver of his desk phone before he punched in Malva’s extension.

It only took two rings for her to answer. “What can I help you with?”

“Professor Sycamore would like to speak with Alan,” Lysandre said, and he met Augustine’s eyes as he said it. “Send him to my office.”

On the other end of the line, Malva laughed, and Lysandre was glad he had the foresight to call her from the desk phone rather than his Holo Caster. No matter how intensely Augustine glared at him, there was no way he would be able to hear her response.

“Well now, this is an interesting turn of events. Whatever are you going to do?”

“I see,” Lysandre said. “Thank you for letting me know.”

“So that’s how you’re going to play it? Pity. It’s so boring. Well.” Malva sighed. “I suppose there’s always time for more interesting developments later.”

Lysandre hung up the phone.

“Well?” Augustine prompted.

“He already left,” Lysandre said. “It isn’t surprising. He’s very dedicated to his work---incredibly determined to see it through. It’s one of his finer qualities.”

“He’s injured, and his shoulder isn’t going to treat itself,” Augustine said instead. Lysandre fought the urge to roll his eyes. “You have a way to call him on the road, don’t you?”

“His shoulder clearly isn’t bothering him if he has decided to keep traveling,” Lysandre said. “He’s fine, Augustine. Isn’t that what you always believed? You weren’t wrong.”

“Yes, I very clearly was. Do you or do you not have a way to contact him?”

“Whether I do or not doesn’t matter. I can assure you that his charizard has already taken him far enough away by now that he won’t be able to double back tonight,” Lysandre said. Augustine opened his mouth to reply, and Lysandre cut across him. “I promise you that he is fine. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“You already have,” Augustine said.

“We can stand here arguing semantics all night, but it won’t do either of us any good,” Lysandre said. “But Alan’s work will. He is working toward a greater purpose, working to use the very same mega evolution energy that you have dedicated your life to researching in order to make the world a better place. You should be proud, Augustine. What he’s doing is for the best.”

“That isn’t how Steven made it sound,” Augustine said.

“No? Well, I suppose that isn’t surprising,” Lysandre said. “But with all due respect to Champion Stone, I believe I have a better idea of what we’re seeking to accomplish---and what Alan is assisting us with accomplishing---than he does. I can assure you, when we are finished, the world will truly be a more beautiful place.” Lysandre paused, and then affected a smile. “Surely the years of friendship between us must put some merit behind my words for you.”

Augustine considered him for a long moment. “Out of respect for the years of friendship between us, and out of concern for Alan, I want to believe you,” he said. “But in all honesty, Lysandre, in light of all the lies, I’m not so sure that I can.”

#ryttu3k #pokemon #professor sycamore #team flare lysandre #fic fix #this got long #so much longer than i intended #and i had no idea that sycamore was going to get *that angry* when i first started writing #(because i just let it flow)#or that lysandre would get that irate in turn #things escalated rather quickly but tbh i can't blame them #and of course i think that alan is quite more intimidating than a charmander when angry #he definitely emulates his charizard #and sycamore is definitely a papa lycanroc #lysandre's opinions as a condescending dick do not mirror my own #just because he doesn't take either of them seriously doesn't mean i don't #seriously what a prick #at least canon killed him tbh

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