Last Time On TMOM:
Starting a journey, traveling partners, a sudden vision, a motorbike crash, and then a panic attack.
Quote: "I don't want wave. Please, Lucario. I don't want it."

Chapter Eleven: The Gift

I've seen dark before
But not like this
This is cold
This is empty
This is numb
-Kristen Bell

At camp, Ash sat away from all the others. They had a campfire roaring, cheering and warm. It cast dancing shadows across the ground for Ash to watch. He should have been with them but couldn't bear it. The light burned him.

They had fussed over Ash a lot at first. They wrapped him up in a blanket to ward off the shock that had shivered up his body. The choking tears were quick to dry but his chest still felt tight, restricting his breathing. He wheezed through it, remaining stubbornly unresponsive to their concern.

Team Rocket was the first to lose interest. The others eventually followed when tasks needed attending. They lost daylight worrying over him and needed to set up for the evening. Ash let them work around him, still curled up under the blanket, staring at nothing.

Nothing was easier. He didn't want to think. Thinking might lead to feeling and he couldn't stand feeling anymore. It felt more than the heavy guilt he had been shouldering. At one time, that alone had seemed impossible to carry. This was new. This stuck like cement to his limbs. It anchored him in place, trembling.

He couldn't let himself fall asleep, despite how heavy his eyelids felt. Falling asleep risked a chance to fall into the wave again. Ash felt as if he was teetering on the edge of some immeasurable depth. If he closed his eyes, if he moved, if he dared to think, he risked losing himself completely.

Wave is very strong with you. Perhaps even stronger than it had been with Sir Aaron.

Ash lifted his head. The voice ringing in his head had suggested that the pokemon was standing right in front of him. But Lucario was quite a ways away, perched on a boulder at the fog's edge. Perhaps Lucario was using the excuse of keeping watch to avoid the others. But he had turned his head from the surroundings to direct his thoughts at Ash.

Ash couldn't speak. Even if he had wanted to, the pokemon was too far away for his words to reach. Perhaps that was intentional. A one-sided conversation would be easier to get through when talking to the temperamental teenager.

Ash stared. Lucario took it as an invitation to continue.

You shouldn't fear it. It's a gift. One that humans rarely get blessed with.

At last, Lucario turned his head, breaking off eye contact with the younger trainer. But before leaping off to resume his watch, he offered one last word to Ash. It was tossed out so carelessly, Ash only just caught the soft-spoken message.

It will not hurt you.

"That's not it," Ash said to no one. His voice came out broken and ill-used. He felt as if he hadn't spoken in years. He coughed and went back to silence. What use was a voice when one had no one to talk to?

Ash didn't know how long he had been sitting there trying not to think before he felt her arms wrap around him. Ash tensed up at her touch but didn't move away.

"How are you doing, Ash?" Aileen asked gently, rubbing his arms as if he might still be cold. "Are you feeling any better?"

Ash looked from the casually dressed princess back over to where the warm fire beckoned. As if sensing the question in his eyes, she answered. "I'm not cold. But surely you must be. Why don't you come join us?"

"I'm fine," Ash managed at last. "I prefer it here."

Aileen stopped trying. Instead, she settled down beside him and stared ahead at the same swirl of darkness and fog he had been staring at. Silence sat between them long enough for it to become uncomfortable. Ash kept finding his eyes drifting over to her. Wondering if she was going to say something.

Eventually, she did. But it wasn't quite what Ash expected.

"I fell from the roof once."

"What?"

Aileen smiled as if the memory could possibly be pleasant. "Broke my arm. I was lucky. Scared me pretty bad though. The roof was one of my favorite places to climb and then suddenly, it very much wasn't."

"You… you don't seem scared of heights anymore," Ash said, remembering how when they first met, Aileen had swung herself into his room from the outside.

"Oh, I am. I just got tired of being scared," Aileen fidgeted about for a moment before stretching out her legs long in front of her. She cast her brilliant smile in Ash's direction causing the boy to turn away. "You see, I figured- I was always in danger of falling. And maybe it will happen again or maybe it won't. But you know what would decrease my chances of it happening? Practice. So I decided to become a better climber, one who falls less."

"You want me… to practice not being scared?"

"No. Not exactly. But like… maybe you could ask James to teach you about motorcycles? Learn how to ride so you feel less… nervous. If you learn more, you'll feel more prepared in case an accident happens again."

A small smile tugged at Ash's lips. Aileen's advice missed the mark a bit. But the sentiment wasn't lost on him.

"So basically… don't be afraid to get back on the ponyta?"

"Exactly."

Ash gave a soft chuckle. "Okay then. I'll think about it."

Aileen gave his shoulder one more friendly pat before getting back up to join the others. But as Ash pulled the blanket in tighter, he suddenly realized that maybe her advice wasn't that misguided after all.

Wave was only as frightening as its depths were unmeasured. If he learned how to control it, made it into a tool… what he feared most would be far less likely an outcome. While it still left a bitter taste in his mouth, using some rare and special gift that he never asked for, it would be better to use it than hope that it wouldn't somehow end up using him.

It took a while to get up the nerve. He kept trying to talk himself out of the idea but Aileen's words had stirred something like courage back inside. Without his pokemon, Ash was the most powerless he had ever been. But it seemed something had seen fit to bless him with an alternative. It was frightening, as frightening as his journey around Shamouti island had ever been. He could almost see those orbs flickering to life in his hands as if they were still there, still screaming at him to fulfill a task he had never consented to.

He didn't have to play the pawn. This power, this wave- it gave him some agency that he had never had before; never against the Legendaries. He could use it to save Pikachu. He could use it to stop Mew. For once, he could be the one making the choices in the game.

The campfire had long since been drowned. Everyone else had settled down for the night, circled around the dying embers for warmth. Everyone except Ash, who stayed where he had been sitting before by the propped-up bikes. He hadn't seen Lucario in a while and everyone's breathing had long since evened out. Ash suspected it was now or never.

He swallowed hard and stood up, shedding the blanket as he did. The night air was nippy to his bare shoulders but not unbearable. Camreon remained in the cusp of summer, even this close to the Tree of Beginnings.

The campsite was mostly shielded from the unrelenting fog. The large tree roots seemed to tuck them away, at least a little bit. The fog pooled out beyond them, as thick as soup. Ash marched himself to the fog's edge, crawling carefully over the enormous tree roots and stared hard out into the sheet of white.

There was no vision like before. Ash closed his eyes and willed it to happen, but the feeling wouldn't come.

Thinking that maybe he needed to be on the move, he slipped off his perch and walked himself deeper into the sea of white. The fog curled around him as he blindly stumbled forward.

"Okay, okay," Ash said, trying not to be bothered by the sound of his voice echoing in the empty space. "Let's go. Let it happen."

He blinked. He took a deep breath and let it go. He shook his hands at his side and then waved them in front of his face. Nothing changed. There was none of that energy he had seen before.

Ash spun about in place. Surely something had to appear. It had sprung before him so easily before. As simple as falling asleep. But beyond the soft tendrils of the swirling fog, Ash spied nothing but more and more fog.

"Okay, I see… I see…" He swallowed dryly. "A whole lot of nothing."

He ran down a hand down his face, trying to force down his rising frustration.

"How can it be that when I am actually willing to accept this stupid thing, it's not bothering to work?"

Ash paced back and forth a few more paces before ultimately throwing up his arms. "Annnnnd now I'm lost."

He had only said as much to express his exasperation to invisible ears. But the longer he spun about in place, the more Ash began to realize how true his words had been. He couldn't find the old tree roots he had climbed over. Despite not thinking he had walked very far, Ash couldn't find a single landmark that looked familiar. He couldn't see much of anything but even the rocks or tree stumps he stumbled into gave no hints of what direction he was wandering.

If he had been with Pikachu, finding himself lost would have been just another day as a pokemon trainer. It would have been as inconvenient as untied shoelaces, annoying but fixable. But without him, without any of his pokemon, Ash felt incredibly small and vulnerable. The helplessness was back and it was suffocating.

Who would find him out here? How could he even signal the others to where he was? Would they leave without him? Would he be trapped here forever?

Ash struggled to even his harried breath.

"Don't think about it. Don't think, don't think," He whispered urgently to himself between gasps. "One step. One step at a time. Take… one step."

But perhaps he had taken one step too many. Ash felt the ground tilt and slide out from underneath him. He tumbled backwards down a steep gully that suddenly yawned up out of the fog. Ash yelled out before his voice was swallowed up in the fall. His world became a mess of spinning fog and flying soil. Objects would leap out of the white at him as he tumbled past, a tree here and outcropped root there, narrowing missing them.

He tried to grab onto something to slow his fall but the roots and grass just pulled free in his hands. Ash had been reaching out when he felt his arm slam into something. He heard the crack but was still too disoriented to register pain. That didn't sound good.

He somehow managed to spot a boulder loom out of the fog ahead between somersaults. He knew there would be no dodging this one but couldn't even manage to scream as he rolled straight for it.

But then suddenly, everything stopped. The sickening spinning, twirling and flipping just rushed to a halt as neatly as if Ash had been caught up in someone's arms. And in a way, Ash supposed he had. His eyes still felt like they were rattling about in his head but they focused enough that he could see the familiar triangular face that framed brilliantly scarlet eyes. It peered at him from over his shoulder, scornful as always.

Lucario was behind him, holding him upright. Ash never thought he'd ever be happy to see the ancient pokemon.

"Are you hurt?"

"My arm," Ash replied automatically, reaching for the arm he had carelessly flung out in his fall. He could definitely feel pain coming from it now. Specifically from his elbow that was already turning an angry shade of pink.

Lucario grabbed his arm before Ash could. Ash let out a gasp of protest but the pokemon was surprisingly gentle. He seemed to consider it thoughtfully before letting go.

"A sprain. You'll live."

Ash winced. "I don't suppose you have healing powers then?"

Instead of answering, Lucario pushed Ash back to his feet where the boy swayed unsteadily. The ground was still uneven and slick with damp leaves. It was no wonder that Ash had fallen so easily. Lucario evaluated Ash's shaky stance and must have found it lacking. Because before he could protest, Ash found him swept up onto the pokemon's arms again.

"Lucario, what-"

"Hold on."

Ash hadn't the time to scream before the pokemon launched back up the gully. Quite instinctively, Ash wrapped his good arm around the pokemon's neck. He had to close his eyes to keep from being sick. But thankfully it was over quickly. Even with Ash's dead weight, Lucario easily made the climb back up to solid ground.

Once Ash was deposited safely, the pokemon dropped all semblance of concern. Its hackles rose as it regarded the bedraggled teenager with leaves still sticking out of his hair like horns. Ash pluckled at these leaves as Lucario began to growl.

"Why were you running away?"

"What? I wasn't."

"Then just what were you trying to do? Taking a midnight stroll?"

Ash rolled his eyes. He didn't exactly want to sit here listening to a lecture from a pokemon but he was still too tired to move just yet. Not to mention his left arm throbbed painfully. So instead he just continued to pull the leaves and sticks from his hair and snapped, "I didn't realize you were my Dad now."

Lucario snorted. "We are different species. Why would you assume that I hold any paternal responsibility for you?"

Ash shook the last of the damp leaves from his hands and climbed to his feet. "Nevermind, man. I'm going to bed."

Lucario easily stepped into his path. Ash, fighting off extreme exhaustion, could only hold his injured arm and scowl at him. "Please get out of my way, Lucario. I just fell down a mountain or something like it. I could really use some sleep."

"What. were. you. doing?"

Ash didn't want to have this conversation now. Not now or ever for that matter. But Lucario wasn't going to relent. And if he actually were to have any hope of making this wave work, he may have to rely on the only other creature that understood it.

Ash let out a deep exasperated sigh and said, "Okay. You win. I was trying to navigate the fog with wave. Happy?"

Whatever Lucario was expecting, clearly this wasn't it. His eyes widened. "Pardon?"

"I was trying to use wave."

"You were trying to use wave?"

"Yes, that's what I just said. Geez for a telepathic pokemon you sure are-"

"Why?"

"Why?" Ash chuckled derisively. "Why not? I mean, I have it, right? Can't get rid of it. So why shouldn't I try to use it? Maybe it could help me save Pikachu or-"

Lucario was suddenly standing too close. He met Ash's eyes fiercely as his thoughts were spat into Ash's mind. "Just because you have wave doesn't mean you should use it."

And then he was gone, leaping back off into the fog before Ash could scream after him. Although Ash tried. Because what the hell kind of answer was that?

"I thought you could help me!" Ash shouted out to no one. "I thought you wanted to help me? What about all that bull about wave being a gift! Were you just lying?" His voice echoed around him but nothing answered. Ash fought down the desperate feelings inside that threatened to buckle him again. And instead of letting them, he shouted out. "Fine! I don't need your help. I'm stronger than Sir Aaron! I'll figure it out myself!"

He didn't really believe it. And it didn't make him feel any better. But he hoped that Lucario heard it and it hurt him at least a little. It would only be fair, Ash thought as he kicked a nearby tree root.

Thankfully, Lucario had managed to drop Ash off not far from camp. Wave or not, Ash had little difficulty navigating his way back before anyone noticed he was gone.

And perched from the lowest tree branch, Lucario silently watched Ash go. And he kept watching until the light of dawn lifted the fog and the boy was fast asleep at last.

To Be Continued
Please Read and Review!

Sorry for the short update, guys. I just wanted to get something up and ready for you as quick as possible. And this short chapter felt better than continuing on with the next part that doesn't fit with the tone of this chapter. I like to keep the emotion in the same place when I update. Even if it's only for one short scene.

I'm actually planning to update this story a little bit more often as it is integral for what eventually happens in Here I Am. And I need to have it finished so that Here I Am doesn't spoil this story or vice versa. So expect to see more updates in the future.

Special thanks to my reviewers as always, AshKetchumForever, Shaveza, YumeTakato, asdf, thor94, and juaniu1994. You guys are the reason I share these stories online!

Stay tuned for next time when Ash finds a strange flower and discovers the real reason Lucario wants to go to the tree.