Michael looked out across the beach and out at the deep blue ocean, thinking. He used to always come out here to be alone to think. Way back when he wanted to be alone. Then he would rarely come, only when she was on a separate mission. Those times were gone. The times when he could laugh and smile. Those times had disappeared when she did. God, he hadn't laughed, or even cracked a smile, for a month. Had it only been that long, instead of the eternity he remembered?
Silently, the Chimchar stood and walked to the water's edge. A wave lapped at his foot and he flinched away from the steam that rose from the contact. Even the small scraps of courage he had struggled to build up over the past year had fled him. He frowned and took another step into the water. Would it hurt, he wondered; if he were to just slip into the water? Was there an afterlife? Would someone who supposedly never existed be in that afterlife, if she were not in this life?
Michael took another step, and another. He stopped. He couldn't move anymore. He felt dizzy, numb; faint. Maybe if he just sat down, it could all be over. The pain would leave, the sadness would leave, and the emptiness would leave. Everything would leave, but hadn't she already left? Hadn't he once told this very ocean that she was everything?
Michael closed his eyes and began to fall back into the water, but then he was lifting, lifting, lifting, and flying away from the stinging water. How, he wondered? He rose until he was completely out of the water and began to float back to land He became aware of two long green vines wrapped under his arms, the source of his lift. He was rotated as he was carried back to shore so that when his feet hit the sand, his back was to the water. He stared at the Pokemon in front of him, her shining red eyes, her mottled green skin, the two vines that stuck out from under the plant bulb on her back that wrapped protectively around his body. Michael shook his head and rubbed his eyes to make sure she was no illusion. When he looked again, she was still there, still smiling at him.
"Mary?" He whispered, afraid that if he spoke she would disappear again. Her grin grew and she used one of her vines to lightly bop him on the back of his head.
"Silly Mikey, no swimming for little Chimchars." Tears came to his eyes at the sound of her voice and he ran to her, embracing her in a tight hug, not letting go.
"You were gone!" He sobbed. "I watched you disappear!" Mary rubbed his head with a vine while wrapping the other around him in a hug of her own.
"Silly, I came back. Somebody needs to keep you out of trouble and beat up the bullies for you." Michael leaned back to look at Mary's face. There were tears in her eyes as well.
"Promise you won't leave me ever again." He asked. She smiled.
"I never truly left you Mikey, and I'll never leave you again. I promise."
