Title: Possibilities

Author: Chibi/Warlordess

Notes: Okay, I really can't think of anything to say that could tell you all how truly sorry I am for not updating in over a month... I've tried every day to squirt out some amount of inspiration into this fic (believe me; you should see how many draft papers I've written that have only gotten past the first few sentences) but it hasn't happened until just recently. I hope that this chapter makes up for the crap that's gone on because it's what's been keeping me from typing this up, along with my Writer's Block: Expansion Pack. Lol.

Summary: The sequel to "Closure". That oh-so-common "two-and-two" are coming together inside of Ash's head, and he has a plan... But is it just one big mistake after another...?

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. I don't own Ash and Misty. I don't own Pikachu. I do own the flashbacks, as they are either from my head or my last ficcie. Now can we please stop with the interrogation?

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Chapter Three: Truth and Lies

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It had been three days, fourteen hours, and thirty-one minutes since Ash's departure from Pallet Town. God forbid it... He was counting the time down to the moment he would arrive at Cerulean gym. He was currently laying awake under the stars right outside of Mt. Moon, at the base of its entrance. There was a Pokemon Centre nearby but, so far, he had been unsuccessful in finding it.

Pikachu was perched atop his stomach, its breathing in tune with Ash's own. It was always comforting to have someone there with you when you were out in the middle of nowhere. Ash would never admit it, but it always seemed to unnerve him if he didn't have a friend at his side in the middle of the night. Usually the sight of them, if anything, was enough to quell the empty, dropping feeling in the pit of his stomach, and to assure him that he could handle anything that could sneak up on him.

Of course, thoughts of friends at his side led to thoughts of Tracey, Brock, May, Max... And, inevitably Misty; only Misty, in the end. Misty was the only one of the five of his companions who'd stuck it out with him alone, when Brock had left them on Valencia Island. She kept him company through the Kanto, Archipelago, and Jhoto Leagues... All up to the point at which she was forced to leave. It could only be described as amazing that he hadn't been able to tell that she wanted to stick it out with him because she was his friend...

Suddenly another thought invaded his mind; of all of the girls he'd met, he'd chosen Misty, fallen in love with only Misty. Why her? Why not... May? Or Sakura? Or Duplica? He could have easily made a relationship work with any of them, other than the fact that he was too young to recognize any type of romantic feeling at the earlier half of his journey. But it had been Misty who had ended up being the most important.

Looking at it like a timeline, he'd known Misty the longest, and the best... But it seemed more profound than that. Misty had been the one who'd proven to him that she would stick with him through anything, until the end of time. She'd been fierce, but she'd also been one of the many reasons for him to train harder and faster and longer before going off to do something stupid or necessary to strengthen his team. She was the voice of wit and reason, a lot more-so than any of those other girls.

May had been a... Great person... A great girl, now that he thought of it. But she hadn't clicked with him like Misty had. He'd gotten used to the way May acted, while Misty was so unpredictable, like himself when it came to throwing his body off of those cliffs. You could always count on Misty to help you vent your anger while May was less hostile and too... Soft in that way. Misty was the one to pull Brock away by the ear when his girl-ravaging got too out of hand, she was the one who gave Ash a good talking to when he was feeling bummed out by his loss in the League, she was the one to cool off his overlarge ego when it was needed, just so that he could think straight.

Now thinking over all of this, Ash felt perplexed. The question inside of his head had changed again. It kept doing that, but it seemed like it'd finally rested on one thing in particular. He'd thought that it was such a mystery, how he'd fallen in love with Misty, out of every other girl he'd ever met, but now it seemed wrong to think that way.

The real mystery was... Why had it taken him so long to fall in love with her at all?

-

Something was wrong with this. Misty was standing alone in a green fog, staring at the blank nothingness in front of her. It was like some sort of noxious gas, only she smelled nothing, heard nothing; it was very eerie when she thought of it.

But then her eyed widened. She'd been here before. Not in real life, obviously, because, well... Green fog was almost too impossible to create to be real, but she knew this place... From another dream; that's what it had to be. There were some difference, of course. Like the fog seemed thicker, and no one was at the other end of her range of vision. In the first dream, when she'd been drowning at Cerulean gym, Ash and Brock had been there, calling for her to try and wake her up because she was unconcious and drowning in the Cerulean gym, in reality.

She replied with the fact that she felt unable to, and she had closed her eyes as she replied with Ash's name escaping her lips... But, feeling red now, Misty knew that that was all beside the point. After all, the biggest missing piece of the dream this time around was the fact that Ash and Brock weren't there at all.

Misty collapsed to what she supposed was the ground. She hated the abysmal quiet and lonesome feeling she was experiencing at this point. She clasped her hands to her arms and began rubbing at them, as though hoping to warm them up from a non-existant chill. It was hurting her; something was tearing at her body, as though trying to separate some part of her from another.

Suddenly she heard something from around her, like a shot being fired into the air. Strange, the way this was going, but that was all she could manage to describe what she'd heard.

Misty leapt to her feet and placed her arms at her side in resolution. She was not going to let herself go just because of whatever was going on. She knew that Ash and/or Brock were here somewhere, and she was going to find them. After all, someone was obviously not far from her, with all of the racket they were making.

She took a step forward and something strange happened. It had all been green, airy nothingness before, but now there seemed to be something else going on. It was almost like the Red Sea; the green fog was parting to let her through, almost showing her a pathway to whoever else was there.

And she took it.

She managed to breathe once before walking onward, her arms still at her side, but much more loosely now. It was like walking through a path in the forest, really, minus the bug Pokemon trying to continuously crawl up her leg. She couldn't help feeling grateful for that.

Suddenly the dense fog returned to cloud her vision. Thinking that maybe she had absentmindedly wandered off of the trail, it took her about two seconds of panic to notice that there was suddenly a sky above her; a gray, devastatingly thundering sky.

Misty took a step back and managed to feel around her waist, hoping for a Pokeball to turn up, just in case she needed one, but no such lucky apparition appeared. That's when it happened.

The sky roared in some sort of disapproval and struck hard with a bolt of lightning that would inevitably kill her and she felt her brain go numb and her legs turn to mud, collapsing beneath her. If she didn't find time to move as soon as possible then... No; she was all ready...

A small body hurtled between her and the thunderbolt and the squeal of a mouse interpreted the action just played. Pikachu had appeared out of nowhere and taken the dive for her, managing to absorb the majority of the attack and deflect the rest. When Pikachu hit the ground afterward, he turned hurriedly and inspected Misty to be sure that she was all right.

"Pikachu; you don't know how happy I am to see you! I thought that I was gonna wander around here until I died..." She broke off, "Thanks so much for what you just did. I--" She broke off as another voice resounded in the area.

"Oh; Misty! It was you? Man, I thought that you were the type to take care of yourself and not depend on others to bail you out!" It was Ash and he was suddenly kneeling beside her and grabbing Pikachu from her arms, "I didn't know that you were really such a defenseless weakling."

Thinking it to be some sort of joke (especially since Ash was wearing a wry grin on his face) or that he obviously wanted her to retaliate, Misty glared at him and took the incentive, "What?! I can't believe you just said that to me, Ash Ketchum, Mr. Overly-Emotional."

Unbelievably so, Ash only snorted at this comment and replied, "Is that the best you can come up with? Maybe that thunder strike still got to you because your brain has obviously been fried to the point of no recovery. I thought that you were the witty one, too. Guess I never really knew you that well, though. Especially not with you trying to act so weird and aggressive all the time."

"Yea, well..."

"What? Don't have anything to say for once? You know, there are some things about you that I couldn't stand when we first started traveling together..."

"C'mon Ash; you're kidding, right? I mean, you told me just a few months ago that we were the best of friends..."

"And, since that time, It couldn't be helped that I added another dozen or so things to that list..."

"...You said we'd be together forever..."

"Oh, yea. About that... There's been a change in plans. I did call you out here for a reason, after all."

He had what? He'd called her out here...? What could he possibly have to say that could be any worse than everything else he'd said so far?

"Ash, please... I know that you're just trying to be funny about this but, really... The joke's getting old..."

"Joke? Not really, Misty. You see, I really can't stand anything about you anymore... Well, I never could, actually, but that's beside the point. I tolerated you for as long as I could, as long as it took to get you your bike and to get rid of you so that I could be at peace. You got what you wanted, and so now all I have to say is that everything we've been through was only necessary. You are of bare minimum relevance to me and, well, frankly, there's no reason for me to continue associating with you in the first place."

At this point, the water trainer looked to Pikachu, hoping that it would do something to rid Ash of his attitude, either shocking or humorous, but the Pokemon seemed to be feeling along the same lines as its master.

Misty was silent for a moment. Contrary to the beginning of this whole experience, when she'd been unbelievably tense, her whole body seemed to have gone limp. It seemed that only her mind even remained in this time and place and everything else had totally gone. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to disappear. She felt humiliated, somehow; naked because of the fact that she'd bared her soul to this boy only a few months ago, given him all that she could, and now, out of the blue, he wanted nothing to do with her.

"So, I guess what I'm trying to say to you today, Misty, is that I'm going one way, and I want you to go another. And I don't ever want to hear your name spoken again because, just so you know, your voice, your face, your... SELF... It all makes me want to vomit."

That was when he turned around and walked off. There was no actual goodbye, just his footsteps and that lonesome gust of wind that you always see in the movies that signifies something final and absolute. Misty continud to sit there, looking like a drone or corpse that was so very much alive, yet had lost her soul in the struggle for existence.

She closed her eyes and managed to squeeze out a couple of tears in spite of herself. She hated this feeling, but there seemed to be no way of stopping it. The tears fell down her cheeks, like she knew they would, but she didn't feel it. She supposed the only reason that she knew they were really falling down her front was because she had nothing else to believe, and so that thought caused it to be true, if not real...

She'd never had a nightmare like this one. It seemed so unfabricated, so... Terrifyingly real. Perhaps... Could Ash really think this way about her...?

-

Her eyes blinked open and, not bothering to sit up and take in her surroundings, Misty wiped the tears trickling down her cheeks. She knew it had been a dream; it was just so unreal... And yet it certainly hurt to hear his voice talk to her that way...

Ash's...

Suddenly, there was something else causing a disturbance; a blaring, electronic voice from outside her door.

"Ring, ring, ring! Ring, ring, ring! Phone-call, phone-call! Ring, ring, ring! Ring, ring, ring! Ring, ring, ring! Phone-call, phone-call!" There was no way that someone was actually calling her at... Misty turned to her bedside alarm clock... 5:30 a.m...?

Misty groaned and got out of bed as fast as her legs would enable her and walked hurriedly out of her room into the upstairs hallway. She managed to make a slight run to the vid-phone right inside the main entrance and tap the 'On' key on the seventh ring phrase.

"Oh, hi! Is this the Waterflower residence? I'm trying to reach Misty Wat--Misty?" The voice was a female one; a young, vibrant, female one, "Is that you? Hi!"

"...May? H-how did you... Who gave you my phone number?" The red-head managed to quirk an eyebrow interestedly as the brunette grinned in her direction.

"Brock gave it to me before he and Ash left the region for their hometowns. I asked for it because I wanted to try and keep in contact with you. Sorry, but I haven't had a chance to call until now because... Well... Things have been happening lately. Max is studying up on everything with the prefix 'Poke' because he's hoping to get his Trainers' License next month and I've had a few new... Interests... Of my own." She winked at Misty as though some sort of connection all ready existed between them.

"Oh? So who is he?" And so there seemed to be. Misty cracked a smile at the young, flustered teenage girl as she looked away, obviously not wanting to get into it any further, "C'mon, you can tell me. It's not like I have the ability to blab."

"Oh, uh... Just this guy I've known for awhile now..." Something was suspicious about May's tone of voice.

"It's... It's not Ash, is it?"

"...What? No way! I can proudly say that I don't have it in for you, Misty. I know who he truly loves..." She winked again, obviously meaning something on Misty's behalf but the Cerulean native was suddenly overcome with a vision of Ash as he glared down at her with that strange smirk on his face, as he told her exactly how much he despised her...

"R-really...? That's great, then. So, is there any real reason why you called so early in the morning?" Misty questioned as she attempted to stifle a yawn. May seemed to blink in confusion before something hit her.

"Oh, no! I'm so sorry! I totally forgot to factor in the timezone differences between Hoenn and Kanto! Ugh, I'm so stupid!" She stuck her tongue out in sillyness and knocked on her head to show what she meant, "I guess I could try calling you back later, you know, if you wanna talk to..."

"Oh, don't worry about it. Something tells me I won't be getting back to sleep for awhile so why not chat it up for now?"

"Won't be getting back to sleep, huh...? Why not?"

"Well, uh... I had a... Erm... Nightmare...?"

"Must have been something, huh? To get you to act up like this... You look sorta pale... What happened in this nightmare, anyway?"

Misty sighed... She didn't want to tell May what had gone on in her dream sequence, but she also knew that nothing good could come out of not confiding in someone when she knew that's what was needed. So Misty laid back in the front desk chair and grew comfortable, enough so that her mouth opened and everything that Ash had said tumbled out.

May was a brilliant listener, as well. She seemed to be like a paying audience at one of those autobiography sit-in shows at the theater. She didn't interrupt Misty, and when the red-head was finished speaking, she gave her the full blast of her "Don't-worry-about-it" expression.

"I'm sorry that you had to dream all that Misty, but really, it's not like it has any real meaning to it! I mean, Ash loves you! He's loved you for at least as long as he's known me. And he's never acted anything like that towards you, so it's not like it's to be expected..."

"But I'm sure that I've been asking for it. I mean, really... I've done so much to him, hurt him in so many ways, and he's still been such a good guy... What if he puts all of that together and realizes that I've been treating him like scum all these years and he takes it in such a way that it overwhelms him and he says those things and--"

"--Whoa, whoa! Hold on, there, Misty! First off, from what I saw of you in Hoenn, you and Ash are at least the greatest of friends. The only thing that was missing after that little adventure with your Togepi was a goodbye kiss!" May giggled as Misty turned respectably scarlet, "Look, I may not know you as well as Ash or Brock, but I do know that you and Ash are really, really close... Otherwise he wouldn't have felt so comfortable around you! I mean, he's a young teenage guy! When we were traveling together, he pulled his sleeping bag at least six feet away from me every night just so that he could sleep without waking up in the morning with a cricking neck because of the stiff discomfort!"

At this, both girls took a moment to laugh.

"...Look..." May calmed down enough to look almost desperately serious and Misty followed her suit, "...I won't lie to you. In the beginning, I did have a thing for Ash. I almost thought that it was love; I really did... But then I realized something... Misty, do you remember when we first met in Hoenn and I got all excited and jumped at you? I told you that I'd heard so much about you? Well, who do you think told me your entire life's story? Ash talked about you almost every single day! Misty did this, Misty taught me that, Misty had that same bathing suit, Misty is really Super Girl! I swear it was an obsession... It never died out, though. You were important until him until the end of the journey... And, I think that you're still very important to him now..."

"Really?" Of course... Misty should have guessed all of this. It was nothing new, really. She and Ash were like two Caterpie's joined in a single Metapod! She guessed that... She just needed to be reminded of it...

"Look, Misty. I haven't had enough time to steer you wrong! So just take my advice! Ash loves you more than anything else...! And don't you ever dare to think differently..."

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Notes: YES! FINISHED! OH MY GOD! THANK YOU! Whew... Okay, then... I know, I know... I brought May back from the dead... Yay for my all-mighty authoredness! (XD) Just take it as it goes, kay? Now, I don't really know what else to say besides thanks for all of the reviews, and I hope to get just as much this time around! So that means get to it or perish!