Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shadow Games
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter6 – Forever
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ash…" May's voice was a whisper as she looked at the limp body in her arms. Anyone would have thought for sure that Ash was dead, except for the fact that his chest was slowly moving up and down. His body was cold, and he had been shot underneath his heart.
"Pikapi…" Pikachu was tugging on Ash's shirt. "Pika…"
"Ash… please… don't die…" Tears started to well up in May's eyes as she watched Ash's breathing rate get lower and lower, almost as slow as he wasn't breathing at all. His body was beginning to get colder and May could feel Ash's life leaving his body.
"No…" She said in an inaudible whisper. May suddenly had an idea – "Pikachu, use a thunder shock attack on Ash! It might jumpstart his heart so he can breath again!"
"Pika…" Pikachu was hesitant on attacking her best friend, but she eventually came to her senses. "Chuuu!" Pikachu screamed as she let 1,000 volts of electricity flow into Ash's body.
"Unh…" Ash started to twitch. "Pikachu?"
"Ash!" May exclaimed excitedly. "Ash, you're alive!"
"M…May? Where am I…"
"You don't remember?" May said incredulously. "You were shot! You know, with a gun! Oh, I was so worried…"
"You mean I was shot?" Ash said. He sounded even more surprised than May. All of a sudden, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. "Augghhh!" Ash grabbed his chest, his eyes looking like they had popped out of his head.
"Ash? Ash, what's wrong?"
"My… my chest…" Ash said. "I need help…"
"Oh, no… Ash, I don't know what to do…"
"May… I feel like I'm going to die…"
"Oh no… not again… and the hotel's gone and those goons are everywhere… there's no way for you to get help! We're trapped…" May started to cry into Ash's shoulder.
"May… everything's going to be alright…"
"You mean it?" May said, wiping the tears from her eyes.
"Yes. I'm not going to die." Ash stood up and pulled May up. "Now, we have to find a place to rest. We'll worry about the others later."
Ash started to slowly walk off, one of his hands on his chest. May followed close behind him.
"Hey, Ash, look, there's a door!" May was pointing to a door in the side of a tall brick building. "There's probably a bed in there that you can rest in!"
"Sounds like a good idea. I probably couldn't walk another step."
May put her hand on the doorknob, afraid it would be locked, but it turned and the door opened. 'Strange…' She thought. May and Ash entered the small door, entering a one-room apartment. It seemed to be abandoned.
"Look," May said, pointing to a corner. There was a queen sized bed in the corner, with a flickering lamp next to it.
"Good, a bed," Ash said, walking over to it and lying down.
'I'm a little bit tired also…' May thought. 'But I can't go to sleep… I just couldn't live with myself if Ash went to sleep and didn't wake up.'
"Ash, can I see the cut? I might be able to help you," May said, sitting down on the bed next to Ash.
"I guess," Ash said, taking off his jacket. Underneath, he was wearing a black undershirt. There was a large hole that had been burned in the shirt where the bullet had entered his body. May started to look at his gunshot wound. "Oh, God…" She started to say. The wound was deep, and his whole shirt had blood painted all over it. The actual wound was purple and dark red, the skin was burned off around it, and May could see a bullet about two centimeters into Ash's chest.
"I'll be right back, Ash. Just don't go to sleep yet."
"All right, May. I won't sleep."
May went over to a small door, and opened it. She had guessed right, the bathroom was inside. She grabbed a large towel and started to soak it in water. Meanwhile, she looked for something to remove the bullet.
May came back in the room with a large tweezers and the towel.
"OK, Ash, I think I can remove the bullet."
"Will it hurt?" Ash said jokingly.
"That's not funny," May said. "Now, hold still…" May put the tweezers into Ash's cut, and grasped the bullet between them. 'Thank god they don't still use expanding lead bullets,' May thought as she pulled the bullet out. Ash winced as the bullet left his skin, but then calmed down. "I found some hydrogen peroxide in the bathroom," May said. "This will hurt, so are you ready?" Ash nodded. "OK, then," May said. She opened the black bottle and poured some of the peroxide onto the towel. She put the end of the towel into Ash's cut, and it immediately began to foam up. (Keep in mind the cut it about a centimeter wide ant two centimeters deep… it's a big cut.)
"Owww!" Ash yelled.
"Ash! Be quiet… they'll hear us." May said. "Pikachu can't take hundreds of them, you know." May pulled the towel out of Ash's cut. "Better?"
"Yeah… thanks a lot, May."
"Ok, now to clean the blood off." May put the non-bloody part of the towel on Ash's chest, and wiped the blood off of his skin. "All done!" May smiled at what she had done. "Now, for the bandage." May rolled up Ash's shirt, and started to wrap a white bandage around his upper chest. He had gotten other cuts by being scathed with bullets, but miraculously the one under his heart had been the only one to get in. "Now, you should just rest," May said. "That should prevent blood loss, so you don't have to worry about… you know."
"You're still worried about me dying?" Ash said softly to May. "May, I couldn't die now. I'd miss you too much."
"Ash, that was the most romantic thing you've ever said! I guess you aren't that dense after all."
"You thought I was dense?" Ash asked with a smile. "By the way, was there a shower in the bathroom? I wanted to wash off the rest of the blood."
"Of course, where did you think I got the towel from?" May asked.
"All right, I'll be right back," Ash said. He stood up, and walked over to the bathroom, pulling off his bloody shirt.
-Ten minutes later-
Ash walked out of the bathroom in a towel. "May, are there any clothes out there? Mine are kind of bloody."
"No, it seems that this place is abandoned… wait, here's something!" May had found a plain white bathrobe hanging on the side of what seemed to be a dresser. She handed it to Ash. "Here you go!"
"Thanks, May," Ash said, walking into the bathroom to change. May giggled. 'I guess that all he needed to wake up and smell the flowers was a gunshot…' And then she remembered their situation.
"Hey, May…" Ash said, coming out of the bathroom with the robe on. "I want to give you something that I wanted to give you earlier."
"What would that be?" May asked, faking confusion.
"This," Ash said, wrapping his arms around her and putting his lips on hers. May returned the kiss, and they stood in the apartment kissing for ten whole minutes. Ash finally backed away.
"I love you, May."
"I love you too."
"Thanks for, you know, saving my life earlier," Ash said, laying down in the bed.
"No problem," May said with a giggle, laying down beside him. "I'm glad you kissed me. I thought I was going to have to make the first move, you being dense and all."
"Hey," Ash said, in a mumble because he was already half asleep.
"Well you are," May said yawning. Ash was unable to answer, since he was already asleep. "Night," May said, falling asleep.
((OOC – If you're wondering why I haven't mentioned any of the other characters yet, what happens to them is just as long as this… I just don't want to write it. If you haven't guessed Ash and May are the real main characters, and when they meet back up with the others.))
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
((May's POV))
"Ash!" I was screaming. "Ash! Move out of the way!" I was frozen, all I could do was watch Ash get shot countless times, pushed against a brick wall, his blood pouring onto the ground.
"May, run away!" Ash was saying to me. "Run, now!"
"I can't," I yelled back. "I can't…"
"Run!" Ash said, being shot again. "Please!"
I gathered my senses and started to run, but not away from the shooters. I ran towards Ash, and pushed him on to the ground to protect him. "Pikachu, attack them!" I found myself saying, and Ash's Pikachu attacked them all with a thunderbolt attack. "Ash, are you all right?"
This time, Ash's wounds were worse than before, much worse. He was laying down in a pool of blood, with holes all over his body. "May… I love you…" He said as his eyes closed.
"Ash, Ash, you can't die… NO!" I screamed as Ash stared to vanish in midair. I try to embrace him, but he's going… gone. "Ash! ASH!"
((Back to normal))
"ASH!" May was screaming in her sleep.
"May, wake up!" Ash said, shaking May. "May! They'll hear us, and come here!"
"Huh?" May said. She had woken up from a bad dream.
"May, you were screaming my name, over and over…" May didn't say anything. She just sat up and embraced Ash's body.
"Ash… you were dead… and then you were gone…"
"It's ok, May," Ash said, running his fingers through her hair. "I'm here, and I won't be going away any time soon."
May didn't say anything. She just continued to cry, her tears streaming down her face onto Ash's bare shoulder.
"Come on, now, it's morning. Let's see if we can find anything to eat." Ash said. May got up and nodded, following Ash to the cupboards. "Actually," Ash said, "I think I'll go see if my clothes are dry."
Ash walked into the bathroom where he had hung his clothes. He took down his jeans that he had washed the bloodstains out of and slipped them on, along with his black shirt. The shirt was tight on him, but it fit for now.
"May, did you find anything to eat?" He called.
"Yeah, just some bread and water though." May replied.
"Sounds good to me," Ash said, returning to the kitchen. Ash used his pocketknife to cut the loaf of bread in half and both May and Ash sat down at the small table. Ash poured the water out of the bottle into two cups. He sunk his teeth into the bread, and finished his half of the loaf in seconds. He gulped down his water as well. "So, May, where do you think we should go now? Should we see if we can find the others?"
"Sure," May said. "I hope that they're still in this part of town…"
Three knocks on the door could be heard.
"No!" May whispered. "They've found us. We have to hide!"
((Getting the impression here that Cipher are kind of like the Nazis now?))
"No," Ash said. "They caused us both pain last night, and it's payback time." Since Pikachu was still sleeping, Ash grabbed a pokéball from his belt, and walked up to the door. He opened the door, and in the doorway stood an exhausted girl with red hair carrying Wes.
"Hurry! Let us in!" The girl said, running in. "They're after us!"
The girl ran in, knocking Ash aside, and shut the door and locked it.
"That should hold them for now," the girl said.
"Wes," Ash said. "What happened to him?"
"He's been shot. By Cipher," the girl said.
'Not again…' Ash and May both mentally groaned.
"Well, we've been hiding in an alley since this morning, and last night, I heard bells, and I looked up. Ho-oh was above us… it was using heal bell to heal Wes. But he's still unconscious, and now we're hiding from Cipher." The girl finally took a breath after finishing her explanation.
"Yeah. The same thing happened to Ash, except I helped him instead of Ho-oh," May said.
"Who are you again?" Ash said.
"Oh, sorry. My name is Rui. I came here to check on Wes…"
She was cut off by Ash. "You're Wes's girlfriend? He's told us about you."
Rui blushed. "Sort of."
"He looks terrible…" Ash said. Wes had more blood all over him than Ash did, and that was saying something.
"Where am I?" Ash, May, and Rui all turned around and saw Wes sitting up on the bed.
((Funny how all the main characters' names have three letters . ))
"We're hiding," Rui said.
"Rui," Wes said. "When did you get here?"
"Last night."
"Oh. OK. Where are Lark and Silver? Or Jessie and James?"
"We haven't found any of them," Ash said. "Actually, me and May have been hiding here all night. Ash was almost killed."
There was another knock on the door.
"Uh oh. This time, I don't think it's going to be friendly company," Ash said. "Hide."
He opened the door, and saw Rosso standing in the doorframe with three peons behind him.
"Take this, moron," Rosso said, punching Ash square in the face. Ash heard a crack, and felt blood pouring from his nose.
"Oh, God, I am so sick of you!" Ash said. "Go, Flareon!" Ash threw the pokéball he had had in his hand earlier. "Use Fire Blast!"
"Flare Flare!" Flareon gathered a ball of orange energy in his mouth and shot a ring of fire at Rosso. As it hit, Rosso was engulfed in a fiery explosion.
"You practically killed me last night! Not to mention how much that would have hurt me, do you know how much it would have hurt May?" Ash exclaimed, burning with anger. But Rosso couldn't hear him. Ash had trained his Flareon so well that within seconds, Rosso had become a pile of ashes.
"Flamethrower the rest of them," Ash said angrily. The other peons, to scared to move, were incinerated as soon as the flamethrower attack hit their bodies. "Good job, Flareon. Return," Ash said, withdrawing Flareon into its home as he shut the door.
"Ash… you were so unfeeling…" May said.
"Remember what he did last night!" Ash said to May. "He practically killed me, not to mention what he could have done to you!"
"I guess you're right… oh! You're nose is bleeding!" May said.
"It's ok," Ash said. "You're all right. That's all that matters to me."
"Um, hello guys!" Wes said from behind the bed. "That was real nice, but can you come over here? We've figured out what we're going to do."
"Yeah?" Ash said.
"We're going to Agate Village for a while. They can't get us there. Then we'll plan for our return here to stop Cipher," Rui explained. "I trust you two have a vehicle?"
"Actually…" Ash said. "We do. We bought a hover bike when we came to Orre; we thought we might need it."
"Good," Wes said. "Then let's go. I know a secret passage here. It leads to the sands where the vehicles are parked." Wes opened up a trapdoor in the floorboards. "Follow me."
Ash and May followed Rui and Wes to a garage-like place where Ash had remembered purchasing his hover bike.
"Everyone can come in mine," Ash said. "It seats four."
"Ok," Wes said. Rui and Wes climbed in the two backseats and May sat in the seat right next to Ash.
"Let's go!" Ash said, and the four were off to Agate Village.