Chapter 1: Forgotten Memories

"C'mon, there's a cave up this way!" Ash yelled through the rain, sprinting across a field towards a cliff towering over them less than a hundred meters away. His Pikachu scurried along behind him, and a few meters farther back, May struggled to keep up through the sudden cloudburst.

The trio continued to run straight into the mouth of the cave, stopping once they were far enough in to stay dry. Ash and May collapsed against a wall; Pikachu laid down in the dark center of the floor. May sighed and looked over at Ash, though she could barely see him through the gloom. "Now I remember what Professor Birch said about traveling Route 120 this time of year."

"No kidding." Ash pulled off his trainer's jacket and wrung it out. "At least we can stay here until the storm passes." Recovered, but somewhat disgruntled, Pikachu stood and walked to the opposite wall of the cave, and shook its fur dry.

"That may be while. I've heard these storms can last for days," May said, and Ash groaned. "But," she continued, "first we should set up camp here, I think."

Ash opened his backpack and took out some dry firewood. "Good idea," he said, placing one log in the center of the floor. "Here, have Combusken light this."

"Sure." Standing, May took a Poké Ball from her belt and opened it. Combusken, the evolved form of her first Pokémon, appeared in a flash of light and, at its owner's command, sent a small burst of fire at the firewood, igniting it. The small fire hardly sufficed for lighting the cave, but it gave off a comforting warmth. May sat back down. "Ahhh..." she sighed, "that's better."

Ash was already leaning over the fire, setting up a cooking stand, and before long, he had a boiling pot of instant soup. He and May sat against the wall, slowly and silently eating the hot meal. They had grown very close over their time traveling together, even though it was relatively short; May, a spunky twelve-year-old trainer, had liked Ash from the first, who took some time to warm up to the idea, but warm up to it he did, and now the two were practically inseparable.

After they finished the meal, the couple sat quietly together. Pikachu lay, sleeping, near the fire. It was some time before May finally broke the silence by asking Ash, "When did you and Pikachu meet?"

This startled Ash slightly. Never before, in the months they'd been traveling together, had they thought to discuss their lives prior to meeting each other. The lanky fifteen-year-old looked down at his companion and paused for a moment before replying.

"Well," he said, "it was when I was just a bit younger than you; I was ten. I got Pikachu from Professor Oak in Pallet Town--actually, it was sort of by coincidence that I got Pikachu." Ash chuckled. "I overslept on the morning of graduation from trainers school, and Pikachu was the only Pokémon left."'

May giggled along for a moment before saying, "So you're from the Kanto region, right? What was it like there?"

Again, Ash paused before replying. "It's a little smaller than Hoenn...it isn't an island. There's more of a grassland climate, not as varied as it is here. But, there's so much there; a real trainer's haven." He smiled down at May. "You would like it."

"Did you know many people there?"

"Yes," Ash began, then stopped. He'd almost forgotten, as he hadn't thought about them for so long, about the friends he had made before meeting May: Brock...Todd...Ritchie...Gary...Misty....

Apparently, his face had sort of glazed over in the brief moment of silence, because the next thing he knew, May was waving a hand in front of his face. "Hello? Anyone home?"

Ash shook his head to clear it. "Yeah," he said, "I'm fine." This wasn't true, though; that last name was still nagging at the back of his mind...but I can't worry about that now, he thought. There are bigger things to worry about. He glanced down at his watch. "Well, if we want to find our way out of here tomorrow, we had better get some sleep."

"Good idea," May said, leaning down to take her sleeping bag off of her pack as Ash did the same. They set up their sleeping bags on either side of the dwindling fire, said good night, and climbed into their beds. May fell asleep quickly, but Ash lay awake for some time, thinking. Remembering his friends from before caused something to clog the back of his throat, as if he were going to cry. After nearly an hour, though, his weariness caught up to him, and he drifted off to sleep.

It seemed like only minutes later that Ash woke with a start. He had gotten a very strong feeling that something wasn't right. The fire had burned down to a few glowing embers; Pikachu still lay asleep beside it. The rain had stopped and moonlight was flooding in, punctuated by an occasional cloud passing. But when he looked over to where May had been sleeping, he sat bolt upright, because May wasn't there.

He stood up and looked frantically around. Her pack still lay against the wall; her sleeping bag was unkempt. Ash hurried to the mouth of the cave--and there was May, sitting at a ledge near the mouth that faced out towards the next route. He sighed with relief, stood at the entrance for the moment for his pulse to return to normal, and then walked over to join the girl. "Hey, May," he said. "What's up?"

May looked up at him. "Oh...nothing," she said. "It's just that...listening to you back there this evening talking about your hometown...it reminded me of my old hometown...."

"Hmm." Ash gazed up into the still cloudy sky. "Tell me about it."

Tears slowly came to May's eyes. It was a moment before she began to speak. "I have no family left. My father left when I was little...just two years ago, the shock of it finally caught up to my mother, and she died of a heart attack. When that happened, I decided to try to find my father...that's when I chose to become a Pokémon trainer. Even though I hated Pokémon, I knew it involved travel, and I would have a better chance at finding my father."

"But I thought Norman was your father?" Ash said, confused.

"No." May shook her head. "When my father left, my mother disowned him and we left for Petalburg. On my way, my mother met Norman, and they married and had my little brother. Then, Norman remarried again when my mother died...so I lived with two stepparents until I left.

"Then, I met you at Professor Birch's lab, and I forgot about all that...until just now...." She couldn't hold back the wave of emotion coming to her any longer, and she began to cry. Ash put a comforting arm around May, and after a while, she was able to look up. Her face tear-stained, she asked the caring boy next to her, ."What about your family?"

Now it was Ash's turn to keep from crying. "My mother lives in Pallet Town still, but my father left before I was born." Silent tears ran down his face as he removed his arm from May's shoulders and stared out into the night sky. "I never knew, or have ever found him."

"Oh...I'm sorry...." May leaned against his shoulder, and he put his arm back around her. They sat like this, staring into the night sky for a few minutes, then May said, "But even if we don't have our families...at least we have each other." She looked up into Ash's eyes. "Right?"

A smile formed on Ash's lips as he looked back over at her. "You're right, May. I'm glad I found you." He then bent his neck down, and kissed May on the cheek before standing, glad that it was dark so that no one could see him reddening. I'm going back in now; you coming?"

May snapped out of the temporary paralysis that Ash's kiss had put her into in time to say, "No, I want to sit out here a while longer. You go on back."

"All right." He turned and walked back into the cave. May looked again back into the night and hugged her knees to her chest, smiling broadly.

Unknown to either of them a pair of eyes nearby had seen everything. Their owner smiled behind the cover of a thicket of bushes. Yes, it thought, that's what we've been looking for....

A high, quickly stifled scream from the route below pierced the silence and forced Ash into another rude awakening, and this time he knew that something was very wrong. He struck a match and scrambled from his sleeping bag. May still hadn't come back. He again ran outside--nobody there. Oh God no, he thought, looking around; his eyes raised to the sky in time to see a large dark object flying away into the darkness.

Hanging from its claws, flailing, restrained by another shadowed figure, was May.

"May...." Ash began to run after her, but skidded to a halt at the ledge where they had sat earlier. Her captors turned, and were concealed by a cloud. "May...Noooo!"