Ash woke to the noise of a roaring wind. He slowly sat up and stretched his arms with a loud yawn. The young champion noticed someone sitting near the front of the cave and rubbed his eyes.

"Serena? Wait, is it still dark out?" he asked shifting himself out of the sleeping bag.

"Hm? Oh, yeah." She quietly replied as Ash sat down beside her.

The two trainers sat in silence watching the storm outside. Every minute felt like an hour to Ash as he calmly watched on. Ash heard a noise from Serena and looked over at her. She looked like she was having trouble speaking.

"Something wrong?"

Serena jumped a little, but quickly shook her head.

"It's just, I wanted to ask you something."

"Go ahead, I'm an open book."

Serena squirmed a bit on the rock.

"Have you ever lost a Pokémon?" she asked staring at the ground.

Ash quietly examined Serena for a few seconds. Her eyes held a great amount of sadness in them. She was worried about her Absol. He stretched his arms once more and stood up. He walked over to the cave entrance and stood there. Serena watched him carefully the entire time.

"I can't say I've ever actually lost a Pokémon," he replied. "But there have been times throughout my journey where it certainly felt like it."

Serena said nothing so Ash continued.

"One of the times I recall was back in Kanto. I had released Butterfree, the first Pokémon I had ever caught myself. I was happy for him, but it also felt like I lost a part of myself when he left. I've had other instances like that, but some of them were much easier to deal with. Kind of like Pidgeot."

Ash smiled as he recalled his time with Pidgeot.

"Pidgeot helped to protect a flock of Pidgey and Pidgeotto from the Spearow and Fearow. I left him to lead the flock and protect it. He comes around to visit sometimes when he has time."

Ash's smile faltered as another memory cropped up.

"And then there's Lucario."

Serena tilted her head slightly.

"Lucario?"

Ash nodded and turned back to her.

"Lucario, wasn't my Pokémon. In fact, he shouldn't have even been alive when I met him. He was stuck in a crystal for hundreds of years, forced into it by Sir Aaron. He was extremely adept with aura, even when compared to other Lucario. He was the one who showed me how to call forth and use my own aura. He was also the one who led us to the Tree of Beginning after Mew took Pikachu there."

Ash's eyes seemed a little empty.

"Something went wrong. The tree thought we were a virus and it tried to eradicate us. It was doing pretty well too. After running around and figuring out what was going on, Mew brought everyone back, but this caused an even larger issue. The tree's immune system was put into shock and the only way to save it was to give Mew more power. And so we did. Lucario and I transferred our power to Mew, but I still wasn't experienced enough. Lucario had to do most of the work and in the end, he died."

Ash put his back to the wall of the cave and leaned against it.

"If I had done better, he might have lived. The thought of that haunts me to this very day, but I know he wouldn't want me to think like that. He would want me to be happy that he's with Sir Aaron again."

Ash said nothing after this and simply sat there. Serena opened her mouth attracting the young champion's attention.

"I'm sure Lucario would be proud of how far you've come since then."

Ash looked at her for a couple minutes and smiled.

"You're right. He would be. I can't let these thoughts tear me apart. I've gained a lot in my life since then, some of them are irreplaceable." He replied turning towards Latias.

Serena smiled at him and stood up.

"Thanks for answering my question." She said dusting herself off. "I was beating myself up over Absol and just felt like the world was ending. After listening to your story though, I think I can muster the courage to move on and make the best of the situation."

"Ah, actually, I have something I'd like to ask you myself."

Serena blinked a couple of times before nodding and sitting back down.

"What do you want to know?"

"I was hoping you could tell me about a man named Lysandre."

Serena reeled back in shock.

"Is that a no?"

Serena shook her head and fixed herself.

"No, I can tell you about him. I was just a little shocked. How do you even know about him? I thought that incident was only known here in Kalos?"

"I don't know the details, but I do know that this man tried to do something here a couple of years ago. I guess you could say I'm interested in knowing what he tried to do."

Serena coughed to clear her throat.

"Well, Lysandre was the head of a big company. They produced items beneficial to trainers like the Holo Caster." She explained as she stooped over and pulled a device from her bag. "The Holo Caster lets you talk to other people with Holo Casters with a holographic image or you can call normal phones with just audio. Apparently all of the Holo Casters were bugged and he used the information from calls to assist in his plan."

"What was his plan?"

"Lysandre, was sick of the world. He was sick of the people. So by using the power of the Legendary Pokémon Xerneas, he planned on annihilating everything so the world could start over. He planned on doing this by feeding Xerneas' power into something called the Ultimate Weapon. A device created 3,000 years ago by King AZ solely for the purpose of bringing his beloved friend back to life. However, his anger was too much and he turned the device into a weapon and destroyed the two sides of the war. His friend, disgusted by the fact the device was powered by other Pokémon left him. A side effect of the device gave AZ eternal life, which to him was more like a punishment. Calem and I found out about his plan and set out to stop him. Alongside our friends, we were able to free Xerneas who fought alongside us to defeat Lysandre. We were successful, just barely. The weapon fell in on itself and was destroyed. Lysandre's body was never recovered. It's thought that he was crushed by the weapon and nobody's simply found his body yet."

Ash carefully listened to everything Serena said. He thought about challenging the belief he was dead, but decided against it. He didn't want to cause any unneeded worry. After a few minutes of silence, Ash simply stood up and walked back to his sleeping bag after thanking her.

"Ash, thank you, for talking with me. It helped a lot."

Ash smiled and nodded once more.

"No problem. Now let's get some sleep, otherwise my darling wife here will be a mile ahead of us tomorrow."

Serena giggled before turning over in her sleeping bag.

"Good night." She whispered.

"You too." Ash replied before falling into a world of dreams.