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You know, when you're a kid, you aspire to do great things. But as we grow old, as we let our fears decide our fate… we become jaded, we lose ourselves. Sometimes, someone else has to come around and show you what it means to live right and to live good.

As cliched as it was, I always wanted to be the best, I didn't just want to win… I wanted to dominate. I thought I was destined to rise to among the stars. I worked hard. I put in a lot of time, and earned a lot of scars. Shed a lot of blood, sweat, some tears. But I always came up short. Some times it wasn't even my fault. But the few times I did win… it wasnt what I expected and it wasnt what I wanted.

And because of this, over the years, the world became colorless. I lost a lot of friends, I lost loved ones, I left behind lovers. My mom said my father would come into the picture when I was old enough... but that never happened. I had to learn how to become an adult in my own right… that, that was tough… especially after I lost my mother last year.

Hell man, I died when I was seventeen. And the scariest part about that was… I saw nothing. I experienced nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was like going to sleep with no dream, it was like getting blackout drunk - you remember where you, and then you wake up in another a different time and a different place and you have no idea how you got there. I never told my mother. I thought she would keep me at home, or make me keep working as Oak's ranch hand.

I wouldn't change any of this. Maybe this is the path Mew wants me on, maybe I'm just an pawn to Mewtwo or Arceus, I don't really know. What goes on with the legendaries is beyond me. But they did give me her… they gave me the brightest thing I've ever seen. She wasn't perfect, she had flaws, her flaws matched mine. She was perfect for me. If Celebi offered me a chance to travel back in time to save my mother, to meet my father, to save Brock, to become rich, I wouldn't. I don't know if or how that would affect the future… if that would affect my own survival…

Anyway let me tell you about her.

Her name…

Her name was May.

She had these eyes you could get lost in. She was sweet, she was kind. She said words that would melt in your hand. And she said words of wisdom. And I fell for the very first time. She was the first I could call mine.

I met her when I was 21 and she was 17. At first, I thought she hadn't seen the world for what it was. As I got to know her I learned she knew the world was rough and dirty. She chose to see things as how they ought to be and actively tried to make it so. She made me want to protect her, she made me want to be her shield.

Though, she wasn't helpless - her father taught her not to be. She trained her Pokemon to be powerful and to be crafty, even before I met her.

Because of this feeling that I needed to protect her, I left her behind when I left to Sinnoh. She couldn't be with her father in Petalburg, because the city was quarantined. A deadly Pokerus Outbreak. I thought it would be too dangerous for her. And you know what, I was right… I lost Brock. That had to have been the second hardest day in my life.

So in Sinnoh, there was this growing crime syndicate. They called themselves Team Galactic and they were lead by a crazy lunatic. Their leader Cyrus… he was a cold, cold man. Very intelligent. His words chilled my bones. When Giratina took him, he showed emotion for the very first time, and it was laughter. It wasn't maniacal, it was like a giggle, as if he hadn't laughed since he was a child. It betrayed his whole image.

But I knew she would do alright in Johto, she had her brother and she had her Pokemon. Team Rocket reformed, and they became a nonprofit organization committed to find a cure for Pokerus. I sent Jesse and James to look over her. I don't know if you've heard of my involvement in that story, but I'll save for another day, kid.

…

Oh. You want to know the bit when we crossed paths again? You got it. It started off with this crazy decision, involving Champion Cynthia, a Golem, and a bunch of booze. Anyway, I found myself on a flight to Petalburg.

Nothing had changed much since I first seen her house five years ago. There were a lot of cars parked in her driveway, some black cars, some vans. They looked fancy and they didn't look like they belonged to any Petalburg citizen. I guessed they were top Government officials. Nothing too extraordinary. After all, Norman was the Southern District Gym Leader. That meant all the gyms in the surrounding towns reported to him. His superiors were the Generals of the Navy and Army, the Elite Four, and the Champion. It was something big, and something important.

The blinds were open but there was no one in the kitchen or the living room. They were probably meeting in the greenhouse, or they made the way to the gym.

Knock, knock, knock.

A minute or so passed before her little brother, Max, opened the door. He looked stunned. A moment of silence. He asked, "Ash?'

"Hi?"

He nearly tore the door off the hinges, and he pulled me in for a hug.

"How are you, man?"

"Good, good," I said. He backed away. He was a young man now, as tall me, built strong and sturdy like his father. His voice no longer nasal nor cracking every other sentence. "What are you now, 19?"

"Yeah, I am," said Max, nodding. "Uh, come on in. Sorry for the mess. Things you wouldn't believed have happened!"

He conveyed relief, and at the same time, grief. Max closed the door.

"Is she here?"

He gave me this… look. No clue how to put it in words. "Yeah…" he trailed. "Don't be disappointed."

Questions started to go through my head, heart started to beat a little faster. Did she get hurt? Did something happen? Does she have a new boyfriend? But I didn't say them out loud.

He took me upstairs to her room, and the creaking stairs made sure to give her plenty of warning that we were coming. Me and her... made sure that was the case one summer left before we left to Kanto. He knocked softly and opened the door. Candles gave the room a dim red-orange glow. She laid on the bed, reading a book. She looked up and smiled.

"Don't be too rough," said Max. An awkward silence. May shot him a look. He clarified, "Not like that! I meant… she's still recovering!" Another pause. "I mean… she can't go… gahhh… this all sounds bad."

He made a beeline out the room with a flustered face, and slammed the door behind him.

I looked at her and asked, "What did he mean?"

She shrugged and laughed, albeit weakly, and said, "I don't know."

I sat on the bed, near her feet. I rested a hand on her thigh, but I didn't look at her for a long time. I couldn't. So I just stared out the window. I listened to her light breathing, and listened to the songs of the frogs and the bugs. A light breeze through the window.

Booming started in the distance. Memories flashed through my head.

Her hand grabbed a hold of mine, and brought me back to the present.

"Theyre just fireworks, Ash," she said, soft. "Nothing to be worried about."

"I know," I said. I sighed.

She held my hand until the fireworks stopped. And we became silent once more.

"Max told me not to be disappointed," I said. I turned to face her. Her features showed no signs of aging. But her neck bruised, arms slashed up. I grabbed her hand and ran my thumb over the scars on the top of her hand that she got from her Blaziken.

A soft, deep breath escaped her. "Yeah, life happened."

"What happened, May?"

"I don't want to talk about it yet, it makes me feel weird," she said. She sat up, wincing and groaning, and rested her head on my shoulder. "I'm… I'm just glad you're here with me… now. Wait… Ash… Where's Pikachu?"

I looked to my other shoulder and his weight was there, but he wasnt. I said, "Life happened."

"I'm so sorry," she said, a crack in her voice, and pulled me into a hug. It was stronger than Max's. It wasn't a hug of happiness. It was a hug of… sorrow? Regret? Relief? Words couldn't describe it. "Stay with me, Ash."

"Yeah. I mean, I don't plan to leave again?"

"Is that supposed to comfort me? And why is it a question?" She gave a defeated laugh.

"May, you know I'm not the best with words."

"I know," said May. "You know what will make this reunion a reunion?"

She had this coy smile on her face. I knew what she meant.

"Food."

"Ash, that's not what I meant…" Another laugh. But she turned serious again, and she made sure she was making eye contact. "Ash… I need you."