The next few competitors were nowhere near as good as Green, and Lance defeated them all with ease, but this time Yellow noticed a spark of excitement in his eyes that wasn't there before. 

At the awards ceremony, Green ended being chosen as one of the Elite Four, but he turned down the offer. Gym leaders had more to do, and he liked his gym too much to leave. Lance wasn't surprised at this, but he was surprised when Koga, whose battles he must have missed, became one of the new Elite Four. 

A boy named Will and a girl named Karen made up the rest of the four. Bruno welcomed them all into the league happily, and it was only after everyone had left the stadium that Lance remembered where he'd heard those names before. Karen and Will were both former Masked Children. 

Of course he remembered Koga, one of the Gym Leaders to help he, Agatha, and Lorelei in their plot to destroy humanity. He wasn't worried about Koga's past. If he, Lance, the main driving force of the attack, had managed to reform, then surely Koga was the same. 

As Lance stood there thinking, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Thinking it was Yellow, he turned, but was startled by the face that he saw. Someone that looked a lot like Koga stood there, but she was a girl. Her short, spiky purple hair was held up with a gold hair tie, and she had a pink cape that was the same kind as Koga's. 

"Um. . . hello", she said. "I'm Janine, Koga's daughter, and the newly appointed Fuschia gym leader."

"I'm Lance", he responded, trying to be nice to her, even though he didn't do too well with strangers. 

"I just wanted to say, my father's changed. He's different from before. A lot nicer. I figured you should know."

"Thank you. Can you tell him. . . I've changed too."

"I will", she said. Lance felt something inside him ease as he heard from Koga's daughter that he really had changed. 

"Janine!" called a voice. Lance looked around, spotting Koga standing by one of the doors to the arena. "You've got challengers to attend to, don't be late!"

He spotted Lance and his body stiffened, but Lance forced himself to smile at the poison-type trainer. If anything, this made Koga even more confused, but he didn't have time to dwell on it as Janine waved to Lance and pulled her dad out of the stadium. 

That went well, Lance decided. 

Officer Jenny informed Lance that they currently had no new leads on Team Rocket. They planned on searching old bases from before Red had caused Team Rocket to disband. Lance wanted to help, but apparently they had it under control, and as champion, he should wait around in case something more immediate came up.

In other words, Lance had to sit around being bored for a few weeks. Great. There was one good thing, however. 

Yellow was waiting patiently for Lance. Officer Jenny had briefed both of them on what was new with Team Rocket, and afterward, Lance had asked her to wait for him outside. 

She walked past an exquisite fountain, wandering through tangles of ivy and thick trunks. It was clear this garden hadn't been kept care of, but to Yellow's eyes, it was beautiful. 

Pulling a short stick out of her bag, Yellow extended it into a long rod. She unwrapped a string that was wound around the handle. A small lure decorated the end of the string. 

Yellow padded through the forest on silent feet, eventually coming to a small creek. She perched on a large, smooth bolder, and cast her line. Thinking back, she realized that she hadn't gone fishing for a few weeks now. It brought back memories, sitting there, holding her beloved rod. 

Even though it was just a stick and a piece of string that Blue had modified to be telescoping for her, Yellow remembered the day her uncle had given her the strong, hand-twisted spinark thread string. He'd also given her the pokeball shaped lure on the end of it. 

Yellow felt a tug, snapping her out of her reverie. She tugged on the line, finally managing to pull a small dratini out of the stream. It was powerful, despite its size, and she had a hard time wrangling it, but she was eventually able to use Chuchu to weaken it. 

Normally, Yellow released the pokemon she reeled in while fishing, but something about the little dragon-type made her toss a pokeball at it. The ball shook for a moment, before it clicked and the dratini was caught. 

Yellow was sitting next to her new dratini, trying to think of a nickname for it, when Lance found her. She'd wandered a ways into the ancient, abandoned garden, but he knew her well enough to find her quickly. 

Arms snaked their way around Yellow's waist from behind. She squeaked, startled, then realized who it was. "Oh, it's you, Lance", she said. 

"Who's this?" he asked, noticing her new dratini. 

"I just caught her. I haven't had time to think of a nickname yet", Yellow explained. 

Lance sat down next to Yellow, and the little dratini curled up in his lap. Yellow smiled at the adorable scene. 

The soft look in the hardened, gruff dragon master's eyes was priceless. She was one of the only people to ever see this side of Lance, and Yellow felt so lucky to see him like this. 

"So", Lance said eventually. He had one arm wrapped around her shoulders, and the other was stroking Dratini's head gently. "When should we go on our date?"

Yellow grinned at him, remembering that she'd agreed to that earlier. "Right now works for me", she said. "What are we going to do?"

Lance smirked at her. "It's a surprise", he told her, "now climb on and let's go." He released his dragonite and sat on its back, pulling Yellow up behind him. Dratini let Yellow put it back in its pokeball, saying that it wanted no part in Yellow's romantic pastimes. 

Yellow blushed at Dratini's choice wording and noticed Lance watching her. "What is it?" she asked him. 

"You look so cute when you blush", he said. That only made her blush harder. 

OML I'm so sorry it took so long to finally update!!!! Here you go, and I'll get right on the next chapter soon. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Please let me know if I did a good job portraying the characters. I actually try really hard to stick to the original storyline so this is something that might have happened in the pokemon universe. I'll explain what's up with the Elite Four and Champion soon (-ish). Anyways, I'll try to update more regularly from now on, but my chapters might not be that long (not that they usually are)