AN: I am sorry how long this took me to write, and for its relative brevity. I am moving at the end of the month and though everything's right on schedule, keeping it on schedule has taken up all of the free time that I've been spending on my computer writing this thing. As soon as things settle down and my life is not in boxes, I will have far more time to devote to this.

They decided that waiting any longer would probably just give the Hydreigon that much more time to recover its strength. And with the cover of night, perhaps they could find their way north undetected by the island's new guardian. But if it found them, then so be it. There was also something more important in Ash's heart than fear, now - though he lacked a name for it. The presence from the cave demanded his attention, his effort, his very will. He didn't know why.

There were few noises around them in the canyon - the nocturnal Spinarak and Shiinotic they saw on the hike all seemed to know they were coming, and stopped what they'd been doing to watch in silence as the two of them passed by. The only sounds were their footfalls, and the rustle of tall grass as they pushed it aside.

"So, hear me out," said Brock, trailing Ash by a few feet and checking their flank. "It could be it's time to revisit that one boundary you gave me."

"Really?" asked Ash, feigning openness. "And what gave you that idea? Did I say something in my sleep?"

Brock probably rolled his eyes. Ash didn't know. It was dark, and he never had them open anyway.

"I actually thought you were dead for a second there," Brock laughed. Ash didn't. "So did Misty. And Serena."

"What did I tell you?" asked Ash, angry now. "I told you I don't want to know what they said."

"No, you said you weren't ready to hear what they said," said Brock. It was clear to Ash that he'd been planning this conversation. "And that was years ago. It feels like things have changed some since then."

Ash stopped walking and took a breath. His body told him to start yelling, and his nerves lit up like they had with the Hydreigon just hours ago. He felt a hungry, scratchy, tickling sensation in his chest as his face went hot.

"Shut up! Not once have I lectured you about your endless courtships, and how little those have 'changed,'" he shouted. "Do you have any idea how tired I am of talking about this? Yes, Brock, you're family, but that doesn't make it any of your business. I'm sure they were both so goddamn hurt. I'm sure they thought I was the biggest jerk in the world, that I was selfish and childish and running away from something I needed to face instead of being an adult and facing it. I was with them for years! I don't need you to tell me what they said when I left!"

"They were scared, you idiot!" said Brock, quieter than Ash but not lacking for firmness. "Serena blamed herself, of course, and Misty was beside herself thinking the last interaction she'd ever have with you was a text she sent when she was angry! They thought you were dead. Everyone thought you were dead."

Internally, he'd referred to it as His Vacation From All This. Three months in the Paldean wilderness looking for whatever he'd lost. At the end, he'd called his mother to tell her that he was okay and would see her soon. The first part was partly true in that he was physically fine. The second part was a lie - it was another three months before "things slowed down enough" for him to come home. And once he was home, he immediately threw himself back into League activities. It was what he knew.

In the cold light of day, he recognized His Vacation From All This for the self-indulgent vanity project that it was, but it felt important to him then, and what he'd experienced out there had made him a better trainer. But it had only made him a better trainer.

"It would have been worse if I'd stayed."

"Look, if you needed some space from everything, then that's not an unrealistic thing to ask for," said Brock. "But it's hard to see disappearing off the face of the Earth for months as anything other than deeply worrisome. I mean, let's divorce this from any judgment for a second: what would you do if Misty vanished after a fight?"

"I'd find the Venonat," Ash began, "shoo it off, and give her a call to let her know it's gone."

"Ash, stop it."

Ash growled, angrily swiping at a patch of tall grass. A wild Cubone noticed his intrusion, and positioned itself to attack before it saw the look on Ash's face. Wisely, it crept back to its hiding spot as the two trainers passed by.

"She wouldn't disappear." He took a second to get control of his breathing. "She was always so much better at dealing with how things changed."

"You were too," said Brock, stopping. Ash considered continuing on but his conscience got the better of him. "You embraced it. Whenever anything tried to stop you, you'd alter your approach, your strategy. And you changed so much in the time from when I met you to your first World Coronation title."

"All of the changes you're talking about were changes I chose to make," Ash said bitterly. "I didn't choose whatever happened to me. I still can't figure out what it even was. All I do know is that it feels like barely any time has passed since I've been to this island. Like I've been trapped here this whole time, forced to watch everyone else move on from it and wonder where I went. You all get on me for disappearing, but I never went anywhere. Not really."

Brock was finally silent, and let a moment pass to digest what Ash had said. Ash, for his part, let the air deflate from him, tilting his head back to the stars and closing his eyes. He took his cap off - it felt too hot for it in this moment - and breathed. Everything that had happened the last few days stretched so far beyond what he knew or was ready for. The only time he'd felt truly in his element was when he'd been running for his life from the giant Hydreigon.

"It was a mistake to bring this up right now," Brock said, motioning for the two of them to start trekking forward. "I just…I want better for you. I don't know what that looks like. Probably not this."

"Better," Ash repeated, trying to get out of his mouth the foul taste that the word left there. "I never wanted to be 'better.' I wanted to be the best. The very best."

"Ash, you are," said Brock.

"Am I?" He took his hat off and put it on Pikachu's head. For some reason, this wasn't the time to be wearing it. "I guess I am. By someone's metric, at least. What that's even worth empirically, it stopped being worth much to me after the last time we were here. Like someone had ripped what was most important to me out from my body and forgot to so much as even throw me a band-aid. What are you meant to do when your reason for being stops being a good enough reason?"

Brock looked annoyed at this - Ash was not expecting that.

"You've been acting like you were the only one here that day," Brock argued. "And yes, if what happened set you adrift, then that I understand. But if you're going to go around thinking you were singularly affected and that no-one understands, then kindly pull your head from your ass and listen to this: none of us were okay. We still aren't. The invitation I got promised me I could put an end to the nightmares. That's why I'm here. I've had one every night since then, Ash."

Shamed, Ash just put his hat back on and kept moving. He was aware - and Brock probably was too - that they were approaching the former site of Seven Island's port town, at the end of the canyon. Neither of them could say what that would feel like. And Brock - he'd been there too.

An hour later, with dawn peeking up over the ruddy canyon walls, they came upon the bend. Around it used to be the port. The whole night, Ash had been anxiously awaiting Misty's return on Dragonite - he did not want to do this without her, and he was beginning to dream up worst-case scenarios about where she might be. When he'd expressed this to Brock, the doctor had reassured him that Misty was one of the most capable trainers out there and that he had nothing to worry about. Every moment she and Dragonite - about whom he also worried - did not appear brought with it new anxieties.

Misty. Lord, he'd been unfair. Maybe when this was over he'd invite her out for a long walk and talk things out. He'd completely blown his chance to make things right with Serena the last and likely final time they'd seen one another about a year ago. It was why he'd not bothered inviting her this time. It was probably why he'd not bothered getting back in touch with Misty sooner. He feared that there was too much water beneath the bridge now. And that was assuming she was even okay.

But as they rounded the bend, all of his fears took a backseat. Though the port was still gone, that was not what caught his eye - his gaze wandered north. To the Trainer Tower, rebuilt.

He'd seen it collapse. So had Brock. And now here it was again - though changed. It had obviously been reconstructed from the rubble left behind by its destruction, its exterior patchwork and welded together. The tower now stood at about half its previous height, and Ash felt an ominously familiar vibration emanate from its walls.

The two trainers looked at one another, each waiting for the other to ask the obvious question.

"Who the hell did this?"

As if in answer to Ash's question, a flash of movement caught his eye from the base of the distant tower: he knew it to be the figure from the cave. He did not realize that a few minutes had passed before Brock nudged him.

"Ash?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sorry." He pointed north. "I think this is why we're here."

"I think so too," said Brock, frowning. "Something came over you just now. Honestly, it feels like it's been there since you found me."

Ash had felt it too. Beyond the regrets and memories that haunted him, a force gripped at the edges of his mind, always gone when he turned to see what it was. He'd almost seen it earlier that night, when the figure in the cave had visited them. He needed to understand or it would drive him mad.

He thought back to his last time on this here, as they retreated on a Seagallop in shame and defeat. Ash didn't have words for it but he'd watched (against the wishes of his friends) as the waves claimed the island. There'd been a terrible screaming out that he'd not heard so much as felt, as though something on the island reflected his anguish. Or shared it. He'd not been in a state to distinguish.

Pikachu looked at him, concerned. The two of them were usually two parts of the same whole - as it had always been. But whatever hold this place had on Ash, Pikachu was less affected. Ash could feel the disconnect, and were he thinking straight, it would have alarmed him. But for now it was just something that could wait.

"What if it's not what you want it to be?" asked Brock. "What if there are only more questions?"

"They'll be new questions, at least," Ash answered. "The old ones have been sitting in my head for so long they're just part of the scenery now."

Ash didn't register the walk through the former port town. The part of him in charge of safeguarding his mental state probably understood that he could not afford to. So he marched through the overgrown ruins in a fugue state, with Pikachu and Brock hurrying worriedly behind him.

Perhaps an hour passed, perhaps two. The rebuilt trainer tower loomed above them, ugly and jagged.

"I think I need to face whatever's in there alone," said Ash to a skeptical Brock. "Trust me, I'll be alright. If Misty and Dragonite come by, you should meet them out here."

"This is a bad idea."

"Probably. But my worst ideas have the best results."

This probably wasn't true, but Brock seemed to understand that Ash needed this. So he nodded and gave his friend a sad smile.

"Do what you've gotta do."

Ash returned Brock's smile and stepped through the wide threshold. Pikachu followed.

There'd once been a pleasant little lobby in the Trainer Tower, with plants and a fountain and a Pokeball-tiled floor. Little of that remained save the last of the tilework. Everywhere, the building's superstructure lay naked and cold. The elevator shaft was bereft of its former cargo, as well, so Ash made his way towards the stairs. Though by no means pristine, it was clear to him that whoever rebuilt this place had taken great pains to make all levels of the place accessible. Or at least all of the levels that still existed.

So he climbed. What else could he do? And as he climbed, the presence at the edge of his mind grew more and more opaque - he could almost see what it looked like. It had a sound, now. Music. A dire melody half-remembered, playing on loop like a recorded message. But he could not interpret its meaning, if it had one.

Part of him expected to see trainers here, but instead were only ghosts. Not even Pokemon had taken up residence in the tower. This place was a wound.

Finally, there remained only one flight of stairs left to climb - the flight that led to the roof. He knew that the presence from the cave was there, waiting for him. Whoever they were, they had answers. Ash took a breath, then another one. He was ready. He had to be.

At the top of the stairs, his gaze fell on a wiry man looking out from the edge of the tower, his back turned. From this distance, Ash might have mistaken the man for himself: his unkempt spiky hair poked out from beneath a baseball cap, and he wore a weathered three-season jacket. He grasped a Pokeball in his right hand. Though Ash'd not made any noises, he knew the man had noticed him.

"Who are you?"

Ash gasped as the man turned to him, smiling from beneath the brim of his red and white cap.

"... … …"

This man was no stranger. He was Ash. Only…he looked hungrier. In his face, and in his body. Whereas Ash was athletic in his build, this man was lanky, perhaps fifty pounds lighter than him. But his face - it was unmistakable.

Ash did not have any siblings, and even if his father - who worked abroad - had ever been unfaithful to his mother, no product of such a tryst would bear such similarity to the man he saw in the mirror every morning. This was not the land of soap operas; there was no long lost twin that'd been hidden from him.

"Who are you?!" Ash was louder this time.

His lookalike remained silent for a moment, toying with the Pokeball in his hand. Finally, after arriving at a decision to some unknown consideration, he lifted his head to address Ash.

"Just a Pokemon trainer like you," he said. "Call me Red."