The first few rays of sunlight touched Saffron, finding the scared town slowly awakening. Most of the citizens gazed at the sun, wondering if perhaps the news of peace that had come the night before had only been a dream.

The Silph tower was more than simply the headquarter of the League; is also served as a home or a secondary home to most of the League's staff. Many of the floors had been converted into living space, and nearly all the members of the elite four and pokémon masters of the league had moved along with their families to the new home.

Yoshi, Dani and Van of course were among those. They had moved to the League's office the day the League had installed itself in the tower, and over the years it had not only become a refuge for the duration of the war, but their home.

"Yoshi dear?" Dani whispered softly, reaching to caress her husband's cheek as they lay side by side in their bed.

"Yes Dani-chan?" Yoshi replied, taking her hand gently.

His wife chuckled softly, smiling. "I love it when you do that."

"Do what?" Yoshi lifted an eyebrow.

"Speak Japanese," Dani smiled, caressing his cheek ever so softly. "You barely ever do it anymore. I like the sound of Dani-chan." She brushed her lips against his.

"Oh," Yoshi sighed contentedly, wrapping his arms about her. "I suppose I could make an effort to do that more, then."

The truth was, he had been consciously trying to stay away from his mother tongue since becoming a master. Most of the other members of the league were not overly fond of Japanese, and he had been trying to oblige them.

"Yes, you could," she trailed a finger down his nose, giggling ever so softly. "But there are plenty of other things you could do, too."

She moved closer to him, resting both of her hands against his shoulders, softly trailing kisses along his jaw line. Yoshi cupped her head in his hands, locking his lips against hers for a long moment.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you more," he replied. Their eyes met for a long moment of silence. There were many things Yoshi could have told her, but he did not. The words would have been empty in the end when actions could speak louder.

It was then, of course, that Yoshi's cell phone rang, loudly interrupting them. Sighing – a sigh mirrored by Dani's – he reached for it, switching it on.

"Yoshi Myoujin," he identified himself to whoever was on the other end. Of course, they would most likely know already, but better to identify himself.

"Yoshi, it's Lance. How quickly can you be at the tower's entrance?" the League's head questioned.

Yoshi sighed, rising from the bed. "Lance needs me downstairs dear," he told Dani trying to smile. "I'll be back as soon as I can." He began dressing before turning back to the phone. "What's the matter Lance?"

"We found a wounded girl near the entrance. She claims to have information we might want to hear," Yoshi's boss told him.

"Right. I'm here in a few minutes." Yoshi closed down the phone, putting it back in the pocket of the black pants he had just slipped on. Dani, still ever so slightly downcast, handed him one of his shirts.

"I hope it's nothing too serious. The war's just over," she shook her head. "I want some time with my husband, thank you very much." There was an edge to the last, the frustration of eight years of war bubbling to the surface.

"Trust me dear, that sounds like the best idea anyone mentioned since I decided to propose to you," he laughed. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"I just hope Van's sleepy this morning," Dani smiled, her eyes glittering for a moment. "See you soon."

Yoshi did not answer, quietly leaving the room, closing the door as silently as he could behind him, making a note to himself to keep a few choice words for Lance. Chances were, the League champion had just panicked over something that was not nearly as important as he made it out to be.

After all, Yoshi reflected as he made his way to the tower's main elevator, Lance wouldn't know what it felt like to be constantly drawn away from one's loved one. At thirty-seven now, the red-haired champion was still alone. There had been rumor, eight or nine years ago, of a romance between him and Lorelei Silph, but of course the murder had cut that short.

"Lance called you too?" a rich voice welcomed him as he stepped in the elevator, its owner hidden under a dark cloak and hood, only a strand of pale blonde hair falling on her shoulders.

"Yeah," he replied, then blinking. "Didn't realize you were back in Saffron already."

The last had been said with as much of an edge as he could manage. Of all the gym leaders, elite members and pokémon masters of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Orange he had to run in the only one that gave him a permanent headache. It wasn't that Karen Blake was in any way disagreeable. The problem, in fact, was quite the reverse.

She chuckled. "There are many things you don't know, my dear Master," she moved closer to him. "Many things..." she reached out with a hand to touch his cheek.

Perhaps it was practice, knowledge earned through long years of dodging her unwanted attention, or perhaps it was simply the homed reflexes of a pokémon master used to battle. Either way, her hand only found the cold wall of the elevator as Yoshi sidestepped it.

"I'm married Karen," he growled. "And quite in love with Dani, thank you very much. Try to find some other man."

"I don't want another man," she whispered in his ear. "I know them. All they see is what I show them," she pushed her cloak aside ever so slightly, revealing the less than decent shirt she wore. "But you..." she looked at him quizzically, pushing back the hood of her cloak. "You are quite something else. You rarely even spare me a second look."

"Loyalty, I think it's called," Yoshi sighed, looking straight in her eyes. "I'm not interested Karen. Deal with it."

The young woman chuckled softly. "We'll see how strong that loyalty of yours really is. I like challenges," she reached out again with her hand, but just as she did the doors of the elevator opened, allowing Yoshi to step outside.

"Hey! Yoshi!" a great voice bellowed throughout the main lobby of the tower. "Over here!"

The owner of the voice was just as large as his booming voice seemed to announce. Standing close to seven feet tall, the entire upper half of his body left bare revealing ripened muscles, Bruno Sanchez was one of the most unmistakable sights of the pokémon league.

"Bruno," Yoshi greeted the man, nodding slightly as he made his way to him. "What's the matter exactly?"

"No clue man," Bruno shrugged. "Lance just said we'd wait for you guys to show up and..."

Yoshi made his way as quickly as he could to the leader of the League, who knelt near what appeared at first sight to be a woman's dead body in a corner of the main lobby.

"Master Gray," Yoshi bowed formally. They used each other's personal names in private but in public there were appearances to be kept. "Mistress Higgins," he bowed again to the aged woman standing next to Lance, if slightly less than he had to Lance.

"Master Myoujin," both of them greeted him almost as one.

"What's the problem?" he asked them both. It had better be good, part of him thought again, thoughts of Dani waiting upstairs for him coming unbidden.

"Her," Agatha Higgins pointed at the young woman, her silver hair dancing about her head as she moved it. "She claims to be an old Rocket agent. She also claims to have important information for us all,"

She claimed? With a start, Yoshi realized for the first time that the woman's chest was moving up and down ever so slightly, revealing her to be alive. Her face, now pale from the loss of blood, was framed in blonde hair, a red and white hat not all that different from an official League one lying besides her. She seemed tired but otherwise unhurt.

"Frankly I don't see how her looks are more interesting than mines," Karen whispered in his ear. Rolling his eyes, Yoshi stepped away from her, maneuvering so that Bruno was between them.

"Perhaps we could proceed?" Lance asked, throwing a sharp glance at both Karen and him. Why exactly he was being blamed for Karen's obsession with him, Yoshi wasn't particularly interested in finding out. There probably was a reason, and he would probably think it profoundly unjust. "What do you claim, Rocket?"

"I'm no longer with the team," she corrected. "I left when the Marauder took over. I never really trusted him..."

"Right," Bruno shrugged again. "Get to the point, will you?"

"My name's Domino Ferraiolo," she started again. She then halted, as if knowing there would be an interruption.

The name, of course, was familiar to them all. It was the name of a man whose death, eight years ago, had led in turn to the murder of Lorelei and then to the war.

"Giovanni's daughter?" Lance questioned, his voice taking a hard edge.

"Adopted," she corrected him again. "I have important things to say about my father," her voice grew stronger. "Before he was executed, my father ordered the Rocket research department to investigate a creature rumored to exist only in legends..."

"Mew?" Bruno hazarded the guess, but the Rocket shook her head.

"We researched Mew a long time ago. The creature he turned his attention one didn't have name, at least not a real name. That, I was given to understand, was supposed to be part of its strength. It is said to be a shapeless, nameless being, able to be anything it so desire to be, or anything a human force it to be. In legends, it is always called Living Shadow or Nameless One or such, and..."

She trailed off, looking wildly about, her face noticeably paling. Yoshi glanced about, noticing the others doing the same except for Agatha whose eyes turned to a single point in space.

"I'm sorry...I thought I felt..." Domino began again, but Yoshi lifted a hand, turning to the league's oldest trainer.

"Agatha, what do you see?" he asked tensely. If there was one thing he had learned in his years with the league, it was to trust her when it came to perceiving hidden menaces.

"I do not see, Master Myoujin. I feel a dark presence," she held her cane up, pointing all around them. "Something is here."

"Something?" Karen questioned. "Or someone?" she threw a glance at Domino, who had drawn back to the wall.

"I know not," Agatha hissed, drawing one of her pokéball. Yoshi reached for one of his own in turn. "Haunter, go!" Agatha commanded, releasing the pokémon, which was soon joined by Yoshi's noctowl.

"Noctowl, do you see anything or anyone...unusual here?" Yoshi asked the pokémon, letting his hand fall to his belt again. If there was a need for other pokémon...He gripped Typhlosion's ball tightly, just as Karen released her umbreon and Lance and Bruno both reached to grip pokéball of their own.

The owl pokémon turned its head about, looking at everything within the rooms. Its eyes fell finally on a shadow cloaked in white.

Yoshi had no need to wait for the pokémon's shrill cry to understand the message – this was who they were after. A flicker of his hand, and Typhlosion was out, her eyes surveying the lobby, burning with a desire to fight.

"Typhlosion, fire blast on that...thing!" he commanded. The giant echidna stepped forward its neck and tail flame roaring with a renewed energy. She opened her mouth, white-hot flames garnering between her jaws before coalescing into a cascade of pure inferno that leapt forward, striking the white cloak.

Even as it did, the cloak drifted down, empty, and the shadows in the lobby seemed to darken. ___________________

The Oak laboratory, in Pallet town, was a legendary location to many trainers and scientists alike. There many of them had received their first pokémon, and many more had stored them for the duration of their journeys. There also, some of the most recent discoveries in such domains as pokémon care and new species had appeared.

Until, of course, the source of all these miraculous discoveries had suddenly vanished when Samuel Oak had announced he would be retiring as a researcher.

Even now, three years later, Samuel Oak did not regret that one simple lie. Better for the world to think him retired from all researching than to have them wonder about what he could possibly be up to. But there were some few from whom the truth could not be held back.

Ash Ketchum had been one such. So was his mother Delilah, who now stood besides Samuel. And so was one of the two women now standing at the door of his office, having just rung the bell.

"You knew you would have to tell her one day," Delilah remembered him, putting a weary hand on his shoulder. Samuel stole a glance at her, at her now lined face, her graying hair, her worried eyes. Delilah Ketchum had always been too loving a mother to raise a pokémon master, and that perhaps was why he had always felt so obliged to help him.

"Yes," he nodded. Of course he had known, as Ash had known they couldn't keep anything secret from her forever. Ash had known it just as much when he had originally decided to not tell her, to keep her safe and sound with the League, as protected as she could ever be.

On the security screen, the door opened, admitting the two women inside. It barely took seconds before they were in front of him.

"Professor," Misty smiled at him. "Mrs. Ketchum. It's been too long."

"Yes it has," Delilah sighed wearily. "I suppose neither of us wanted reminded of the last time we met."

Samuel shook his head sadly. That, too, had been part of the deception, the sober ceremony they had held to honor Ash's supposedly departed soul. Of course, Ash had never really died, there had been no body, but the league had insisted after too many months had gone by on holding the ceremony.

At the time Samuel had been amused at the fact Ash would be one of the blessed few allowed to be alive and present at their own funeral. Ash, as far as he remembered, had liked the irony, although he had been far too worried about Misty's feelings to appreciate it as much as he could have.

Misty quickly went through the process of presenting Ash's mother and Sabrina to each other. The women barely even looked at each other, both their minds obviously elsewhere. From his place, Samuel thought he could observe a knowing smile on Sabrina's lips.

"What can I do for you Misty?" he asked. He knew what she was going to ask, but better not to let her know that.

"Professor, why did you abandon your research?" she asked pointedly. "And how did Ash react to it?"

Samuel sighed, feeling Delilah's hand tightly squeezing his. She had been an ever-present source of comfort in the years of doubt his new discoveries had sparked. He prayed that she would remain so for many years yet.

"I abandoned my research to keep my discoveries a secret forever," he answered, weighing each word. Could he even afford to tell her? There were no guarantee the league would not learn what he had found from her mouth. And if they did, they would not hesitate to use it, breaking any secrecy he had hoped to maintain around the discovery. Without secrecy, the discovery could never become useful against those now talking of banning pokémon training.

"What discoveries, if it's not too much to ask for?" Misty asked. Of course, she would be the one to ask – none of the others had any reason to. And with Sabrina involved...

"I suppose I might as well tell you," he finally decided, feeling Delilah's hand tightening about his. "First off Misty, what do you know of how pokéballs work?"

"Well, they are able to convert pokémon in energy and..." the gym leader began.

"Close, but not quite," he interrupted already. "You see, the ability of pokémon to transform in pure energy is their own. They have no need for a pokéball to perform such a transformation – only of a suitable container to hold their energy form for a time after they take it, since they cannot take their physical shape back immediately and unless they do, the energy disperse and they effectively die."

"Right," Misty nodded. So far she seemed to find nothing wrong with his explanations. Of course, most of the surprising parts were yet to come.

"Today, of course, we primarily use pokéball as containers," he went on. "But this was not always so. Up until perhaps the renaissance, there were neither pokéballs nor other such containers. They were invented then, but before..."

"There were no trainers?" she asked incredulously. "Pokémon were just wild and roaming free?" she didn't seem to want to believe it. Of course, most trainers simply assumed that their art as they called it had always existed, not even stopping to think how illogical an idea that was.

"No trainers as we know them. But texts of the era refers to something that was then called a 'tamer'," Samuel took back his line of thought, explaining further. "They were never too clear about what was meant by it, and most people simply assumed that it was another term for trainers. In some way, I think it was, but for trainers as they knew them then."

"As they knew them then?" Misty lifted an eyebrow, repeating his own words. For a moment, Samuel considered a prayer of thanksgiving that only she needed to be told – to have both her and Sabrina asking questions would have been extenuating.

"Yes, as they knew them then. You see, I have reasons to believe there were no equivalent to pokéball until the renaissance or so, as I told you before. What I suspected from the way texts described the actions of these tamers was that they had no need for pokéball, and..."

"The pokémon stayed beside them?" Misty interrupted yet again, and Samuel wondered if he would ever be allowed to reach the end of his explanation. "You mean, like Ash's pikachu?" the last had been said with a sudden twinge of pain in her eyes, and he decided to hurry his explanations along to get to her true reason for visiting him as fast as he could.

"No, not at all. What I found is that somehow, certain humans have a genetic...capacity, I suppose would be the term...that allow their body to store the energy produced by the pokémon within themselves. They are, essentially, living and conscious pokéballs able to store any number of pokémon."

He waited for an interruption that did not come, Misty staring at him with her eyes wide, disbelieving.

"You are so much like Ash," Delilah chuckled softly at the sight. "He looked a lot like that when he first heard Samuel's theory." _______________________

Misty sighed. "Right. The theory's very interesting professor, thanks for sharing it." It was a lie, really. As groundbreaking as the idea was, she simply couldn't really bother to pay attention to it. Had she not asked and felt obliged to listen politely until he was done, she would have skipped to the point long ago. "Does it have anything to do with Ash's disappearance? Or any of the other that happened at the same time?"

"Not directly, no," he shook his head. "Ash was here visiting in secret at first, true, but it wasn't what prompted him to vanish more permanently."

Vanish more permanently? A part of her mind wanted to cry out at the word. If he had vanished of his own free will, then he was alive, then he...

Then again, he had chosen to go. And, more importantly, he had chosen to leave her behind.

"So it was his choice," she whispered, feeling her voice breaking. A tear formed at the edge of her eyes, one she did not brush away, letting it run its course down her cheek.

How could he break her heart like that?

"Wait Misty," Ash's mother told her, her voice an oasis of soothing warmth. "Will you please listen to the whole story?"

She nodded, struggling to keep her face straight, to hold the tears back.

Oak hesitated for a moment, doubt plainly written all over his features. Ash's mother let her hand rest on his shoulder, whispering something to him alone. He nodded.

"It began while Ash was visiting to hear Samuel's explanation about his research," she explained. "That was about when Gary and the others vanished in the Orange islands."

"Right," Misty nodded, trying to keep her wits about her. She had to understand now. If she did not...if there was not enough to understand...

If that were the case, there would be nothing to stop her fall in the bleak chasm of a broken mind, nothing to keep her from wandering, soulless and hopeless in the gray plains of a lonely heart.

"When Ash heard the reports of the disappearance, he said it reminded me of some creature he claimed he had fought years ago – something he called a 'Hunter'. He said it was perhaps the deadliest opponent he had ever faced, and that if it really was that, he would have to face this one too."

Misty's hear froze, the words washing over here. She had heard Ash's tale of his encounter with what he had called the Hunter on his way back from Hoenn. It had been Ash's favorite horror tale, a nightmare that according to Ash himself he had only survived thanks to the help of a mysterious stranger.

And now he had gone to face one of them alone? The slight glimmer of hope she had been nurturing all these long months slowly began shriveling in nothingness.

"Why didn't he tell me?" she asked, shaking her head, closing her eyes against the bitter tears. "Why didn't he..." Now he would die, or was already dead, and she hadn't been able to do anything for him. "Why didn't he tell me!?" She yelled the last, rising to her feet, gripping the edge of the table with both her hands. "Why..."

"Would you have let him go on along?" Mrs. Ketchum replied with a sigh. "It was hard enough for me, and you're worse."

Misty shook her head. Of course, Ash's mother was right. Why would she have let Ash go on along? Why wouldn't she have kept him safe, protected him from...

And why, a small voice deep in her own mind asked, wouldn't he do the same?

"I know," she nodded finally, sighing wearily. "I..." she tried to find something to say, but what words could there be? Understanding made acceptance no easier.

"He wanted to keep you safe," the older woman went on. "He wanted to know you were safe and sound searching for clues to his disappearance in the League's archive..."

"Wait!" Misty's eyebrows rose at once, her once more open eyes letting a few tears they had been holding back trickle out. "How did he know I'd do that?"

"I promised him I would make sure you did," a voice, silent until then, intervened.

Misty turned, disbelief painted all over her face. How could...

"You knew all along," she whispered, her eyes falling on Sabrina's face. Her voice was neither bitter nor angry. She simply stated the fact. Why did she even care anymore, when it seemed everyone knew but her? And Sabrina had said often enough how much she owed Ash after all. "You knew..."

She collapsed back on her chair, holding her head in both hands, and let all the tears she could find flow free.