FicWad

The ship lurched sickly in the violent waves, intensifying the seasickness that was felt by many of its passengers. Rain hammered down on its many surfaces, creating a repetitive thudding, like a drum. Lightning crashed off in the distance.

But none of this bothered our hero as he made his way toward the deck. Having been through storms and nightmares unimaginable to most teenagers his age, no amount of stormy seas could frighten Ash Ketchum. He had spent a significant chunk of a summer on the sea a few years before, and had nearly drowned several times in just the past three years. This storm was nothing...

...at least, to the storm in his heart.

Ash Ketchum had been growing tired lately. The previous three years had weighed heavily on his spirit, and he was at an emotional breaking point. Constant attempts by Team Rocket to steal his Pokémon were growing monotonous and painful; his frequently reprised role as savior of the world was slowly eating away at his sense of free will. Ash had begun to feel trapped, and had taken leave of his companions to begin a long vacation in the most remote regions of Johto, where Team Rocket and his friends would be unlikely to follow. Leaving Brock and May in Hoenn had been difficult, but Ash found that it was worth it.

He walked to the doorway to deck, and stood in it, admiring the rain that crashed onto the ship. There was a peace in the dull roar of it all, a sort of catharsis, although catharsis was not the word that came to his mind. Ash Ketchum, while heroic and intelligent, was in no way an intellectual. The young man was a doer, not a thinker.

I noticed him enter my field of vision, seeing him for the first time on the whole trip, though I had found out that he was aboard before we departed. I had been keeping track of the boy for some time now-how else could I relate his travels to you in such detail?

"Hello," I said to him, using that cheerful and bubbly voice for which I am known. It is the voice in which I tell you this story now, and the voice in which I have told you many of the other stories of Ash's life.

"Hello," he returned. I couldn't help but shudder at his coldness; this was not like him at all. Ash Ketchum was a warm child, and had always been particularly kind to me, especially given the many ways I have hurt him over the years.

"How are you?" I asked.

"Making you look sane."

"I deserved that."

"You deserve a lot more than that."

"I thought you were big on forgiveness."

"When I believed in things, I was."

I looked down, tears forming in my eyes. So this is what it had come to-we had reversed roles.

He looked at me, a bit of warmth beginning to gather in his dark eyes. "What's up with your voice anyway? You sound like Brock on E."

"I needed a change."

"We all need change."

"That's why you're going back to Johto?"

"Yeah."

I looked at him carefully, noticing just how much he had changed. The beginnings of stubble had begun to appear on his once childlike face; his voice was deeper but still recognizable. His outfit was sleeker, darker... And his companion, Pikachu, was absent from his shoulder or his side.

"Where is Pikachu?"

"In my backpack. Seasick."

"I'm a bit seasick myself."

"You and water, huh?"

I chuckled. "Yeah, I do have a way with it."

"What've you been up to?" He asked, curious. "I haven't heard form you since... well, last time I was in Johto. I had no idea you were in Hoenn."

"I've been traveling... Seeing the world. Getting some sun."

He chuckled. "It's nice to see you happy."

"I wish I could say the same."

He looked away, not wanting to talk about it. Of course, I knew, and I would find out all the details later, but the details are irrelevant. That isn't why I'm telling you this story, and they weren't really that important in what was bothering him. This story is an ending, not a beginning-and it is the last story of Ash that I will ever narrate.

"Ash, where are you going?"

He looked at me, and a dark twinkle appeared in his eyes-one of the first times he truly grasped irony. Grinning widely, he answered the question he had asked me years before with the same words I had used in response: "Where my heart can learn what yours knows so well."