I know that "Return To The Past" isn`t done yet, but an idea for a story popped in my mind a few days ago. And I finally decided to use it :D I hope you enjoy reading it!
Another sunny day started in Pallet Town, a small, peaceful city, which was located in Kanto region. It wasn`t well known in the world of Pokemon, but some people could connect it with the probably most respected professor in whole region - Samuel Oak. His researches were studied by many scientists, and every one of his books was a bestseller, especially his poems. But recently Pallet Town started to be known of another person, an 18-years old boy who won Kalos League and was able to beat the Elite Four of the same region. He lost to Diantha, the champion, but he fought to the end, and he was still able to beat 5 of her Pokemon. That was a great achievement anyway, so his mother Delia started to prepare a room for his another trophy. She started her day with some cleaning, which was her favourite activity. Along with her Pokemon, Mr. Mime, she would clean her house everyday only to not be bored. She had a great mood this day. And she didn`t know that it will be probably the worst day in her whole life.
While she was cleaning a table in kitchen, someone knocked to the door. Delia, who was sure that it`s her beloved son, who was behind the door, happily opened them. And she was very surprised to see two men wearing black suits and hats in the same color. She looked at them with a surprised look. All three of them were silent for a while, but one man decided to break the silence. He cleared his throat and spoke slowly.
"Excuse me, but is there a chance that you`re Delia Ketchum, the mother of Ash Ketchum?"
"Yes, it is me, why are you asking? Did something happen?" the red-haired woman asked, unaware of what was coming next.
"To be honest, yes. But can we talk about it inside the house? You should sit on something before we start" another man said. Delia nodded, and everyone entered the house. She sat on a sofa and looked again at the men, who were standing above her.
"If you have any friends in this town, I would suggest you to tell them to come here as fast as they can, it is very important."
"Okay, give me a minute" Delia said as she walked to the videophone. She phoned to Samuel and his grandson, Gary. Delia was very close to the professor, who also was her best friend. He was the only person she could talk to, because her son would always travel somewhere else when he was done with one region, and Delia, although she had Mr. Mime, still felt very, very alone. She learned that they weren`t alone in their lab at the moment, but they declared that they are going to come ina few minutes, along with their guests. And they did, after five minutes Delia let them in.
"Hello Delia, what`s the matter?" Professor Oak came in first and asked with a smile.
"You see, two men arrived here a while ago and they asked me to bring some friends to my house, I don`t know what is going on, but it must be something important."
"Hello Mrs. Ketchum!" Gary shouted, jumping from behind of Samuel. Delia smiled at him, but she was very surprised when she saw their "guests".
"Brock? Misty? What are you doing here?" Delia asked; it was nice to see some of Ash`s closest friends after nearly year.
"You see, Professor invited us to show his newest discovery to us, but that`s not important right now" Brock explained. "Why were we called in such a rush?"
"We`ll see... I only hope that nothing really happened..." Delia said with a frown. "Let`s go to the living room, there we`ll see what do those man want to say."
"So... what is exactly going on?" she asked.
"Ma`am, we are sorry to be the ones who inform you about this, but..." the man sighed. "Your... your son is dead."
Everyone opened their mouths in shock. Only Delia was able to say something.
"What are you talking about?" Delia smiled weakly to them, not accepting what they were saying. "I talked to my Ashy yesterday and he was perfectly fine, it`s impossible that..."
"Ma`am, his body was found today in the morning in one of the streets in Lumiose City. We have a few photos, but we will show them to you only if you want to see them" one of the men grabbed one of his pockets and opened it, revealing three photos. Delia`s attitude suddenly changed when it hit her: those men weren`t joking. She looked at her friends: they all had the same look on their faces, they were frightened.
She grabbed the photos with a shaking hand. When she saw them, she started to cry histerically. She covered her face with her hands and let the photos fall on the floor. The men in black tried to comfort her, but it wasn`t looking that she would be able to calm down anytime.
"It`s impossible..." Misty said, barely breathing; when Samuel, Brock and Gary examined the photo, their faces went pale. It really was Ash on the photo. Although they tried to hold back, every one of them burst out with cry.
"Misty, I don`t think that you should see this..." Brock said through sobs. Misty didn`t care about what he said and grabbed the photos from his hands. After looking at them for three seconds she had enough; she lost her consciousness and fell on Brock`s shoulder, her face wet and pale.
No one said anything more, there was only crying and sobbing in disbelief.
Two days later...
"MAX!" a loud scream could be heard from Petalburg City`s gym. It was a voice of May Maple - seventeen years old daughter of Norman and Caroline. Her father was a gym leader, so she, and her brother Max were supposed to clean the gym often. And on that day they were going to do it, or, at least May was going to do it. But her brother didn`t care about his father`s orders and used to try to sneak out of his house for that time. But this time May wasn`t going to let him run away. She caught her brother right when he was going to open the main door and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.
"May, please! I did it a week ago, why can`t I take a break now?" he acted as if he was going to cry; the only thing that he forgot was that he was thirteen now and this trick won`t work anymore.
"Don`t make me angry even more, Max" May hissed at her brother. "Don`t think that you can do what you want only because our parents left for some meetings in Mauville City."
"Okay, okay, I`ll help you with the gym" Max muttered.
"Not only with the gym, but you will do the laundry. After your match yesterday you just simply left your clothes in the bathroom, like if you were waiting for someone to clean it for you!" May was getting even more angrier. "Why can`t you be more responsible?"
"I think that you`re overacting sis, it was only a shirt and two pair of shorts. It`s not like I`m doing it every day" Max stated.
"I don`t care, ugh, why must you still be so childish? At your age, you should be more mature!" May yelled. "I still remember what happened two days ago!"
"I said that I was sorry for breaking that vase, it`s not my fault that my Treecko started to jump on everything in living room! And I know what you`re going to say: I should be responsible for actions of my Pokemon..."
"It`s nice that you remembered that at least" May facepalmed.
"Ugh, just let me go already, I can`t breathe!" Max yelled, trying to get free. May decided to break her grip on his shirt, which resulted in him collapsing heavily on the ground.
"Ayy, May, what`s gotten into you? You started to act different three months ago. Now you easily get angry for the most silly things, and I haven`t seen a smile on your face since a month, you know, when you were talking with Ash for the last time" Max said, rubbing his neck in pain. "Hey, while we are talking about Ash... he is supposed to be in Pallet already, right? Why don`t we phone him? I really want to know how he did in his fight with Diantha!"
"Okay, that`s a great idea" May smiled, but the smile itself quickly disappeared from her face. "Although I know that you want to do that only to shirk off your duties." Max grinned sheepishly; at least May smiled, only for a second, but that was something. They walked to a videophone, which was standing next to the entrance of the gym. May launched the machine and typed Delia`s number. Surprisingly, no one answered.
"Huh, it`s not normal for Delia to not answer to any of calls" May said, not sure what to think about it. She tried to call to Ash`s house another time, but without any results. May looked at Max, who simply shrugged and both of them started to head back to the main part of her house. But they stopped when they heard a beep sound, which meant that someone was calling them. May quickly answered and the screen lightened up. Two siblings noticed Delia on it, but something definitely wasn`t right; she wasn`t looking at the screen, her eyes were heavily bloodshot, she also had dark circles under them. She was in horrible state.
"Hello...?" she muttered slowly. After a few seconds she raised her eyes to see two familiar faces on the screen. "Oh, hello May and Max, it`s good to see you."
"Mrs. Ketchum, what happened to you? You look horrible, like if you weren`t sleeping for a week!" Max shouted, but was quickly punched by his sister; May pointed her finger in his room`s direction, and Max understood it perfectly. When the girl was alone, she turned to the red-haired woman.
"I`m so sorry for my brother, but he was partially right; something terrible happened, am I right?" May asked worriedly. Delia nodded and some tears started to fall from her eyelids.
"Oh, so you don`t know anything yet? May, I don`t know how to say it... Please, take a chair and return to me with it, okay? I want you to sit, it will be hard for you."
May, who started to have bad feelings about this, took the nearest chair and sat on it. Delia looked in the eyes of the brunette, and started to cry.
"Before I say what happened, I want to invite you and your family to a funeral. It will be in two days from now, and I really want you all to be there"
"Okay, we will come... but what is going on?! Whose funeral is it? Please tell me" the girl asked, slightly frightened by the woman`s behavior.
"It`s hard for me to even talk about this..." Delia started to cry again. "May... Ash is dead."