Island Wolf: You sweet, sweet people, gosh the fans of this ship are just the best! :) Now this chapter is dry and smacks of filler, but it had to be done I'm afraid. Still, I hope you all enjoy it - oh and shout out to frozenmadame! Check out her Tumblr for all sorts of Redorbshipping goodness! Teammaxie on Tumblr also has some absolutely wicked Redorbshipping fics, check it ouuuuut.

Chapter title based on the song "Tomorrow will be Kinder" by the Secret Sisters

Disclaimer: I don't own pokemon or its characters. Also there will be a a significant amount of neuroscience being discussed here let me be the first to say (before I get yelled at by someone) I AM NOT AN EXPERT, DO NOT TAKE ANYTHING YOU READ AS THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH, THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION, KEEP THAT IN MIND.

And to any neuroscientists out there *cowers* please don't hurt me, my degree was in ecology, not neurology T_T

"Hey Boss, good to have you back."

Maxie blinked against the expanse of whiteness that threatened to blind him. He felt disoriented, his chest ached fiercely and his left hand itched with the familiar discomfort of an IV. It took him a moment to realize that he was in a hospital room and that Tabitha was sitting in a chair next to his bedside. The younger man smiled, but it was weak and tired, and the deep shadows under his eyes told the tale of several sleepless nights. "Tabitha?" he rasped. Christ, his throat felt like is was lined with sandpaper. "Where – what – ?"

"Take it easy Boss, you've had a rough go of it," Tabitha said, raising his hand in a calming gesture. "First off you're in Ever Grande at the League's private medical facility – you've been here for three days."

"How -"

"Two broken ribs, three more cracked and a sternal fracture. They had to put you on a ventilator your first night here."

"Are you going to let me finish my sentences?"

"Sorry."

Maxie closed his eyes and drew a deep, steadying breath – or at least as deep as his broken ribs would allow. "What happened during the raid? How did you even find us?"

"Miles, the poor bastard," Tabitha answered with a sad smile. "Just before you crashed he switched on the aircraft EPIRB and sent out a broadband Mayday. We found the crash sites and recovered the flight data recorders. The cockpit radio recordings mentioned Kamovs – we calculated a search radius based on how far they could've flown before needing to refuel. Took some time, but we managed."

"What about Ardos?"

"Scarpered before we could grab him unfortunately. On the bright side we definitely struck Cipher a blow; that base was a major R&D facility, we recovered a lot of shadow pokémon - some of your team among them, and a nice bit of data before the computer hard-drives were remotely wiped."

"...And Miss Maple?"

Tabitha dropped his gaze to his lap, fidgeting uncomfortably. "They managed to recover her, but it's – it's not looking good," he said quietly. "They've been keeping her sedated and running tests, but from what I've heard it's not a pretty picture."

"Two more questions: where is Mr. Stone and where are my clothes?"

"Sir, I really don't think -"

"Tabitha, broken ribs or not I will throw you through the goddamn the wall if you don't start moving, on the double – and don't forget my glasses!"

"Right, be back in a tick!"

Walking was proving to be one of the most difficult tasks he'd taken on in a long time, even with his chest wrapped every breath felt like a knife was being thrust into his side. Tabitha led him through the facility and for that Maxie was grateful – he would have had a hell of a time trying to find his way alone. They ascended several floors into a hallway that seemed to be comprised mainly of offices and Tabitha stopped in front of a door bearing a plaque labelled 'Dr. Marcus Villiard'. He knocked; there was a beat of silence before the door opened to reveal a middle-aged man with sable hair and blue eyes that stood out brightly against his olive skin. "Ah Mr. Rauche, Mr. Asher, I was wondering when you would show up. Please, come in."

The room was dark, the back wall containing a series of back-lit panels that held what appeared to be a series of brain scans. Maxie felt nausea twist deep in his gut. Steven Stone stood in the back corner, focused intently on the scans – the only acknowledgement he gave to Maxie's presence was a brief side-long glance. The doctor shut the door and moved to stand in front of them. He leaned back against his office desk, interlacing his fingers together.

"I assume you're here to enquire about May Maple's condition."

"You'd be correct."

"Her situation is – complicated to say the least," Villiard sighed. "The process they used to change Miss Maple was very complex. They have manipulated her genetic structure on the molecular level to change certain aspects of her physicality; to put it simply she is stronger, faster and more durable than a normal human. This is irreparable, but in the grand scheme of things it's the least of our concerns."

"How so?"

The doctor pressed his lips together in a hard line and walked over to the wall of brain scans, using a pen from his breast pocket as a pointer. "The amount of surgery they have done is far more intensive than we'd originally thought. Almost every part of her brain has been operated on and altered with some form of neural enhancement or control implant. That in combination with a multitude of drugs is what has been keeping her under Ardos' control.

"What sort of drugs?"

"Neural-inhibitors, injections of neurotransmitters, hormone controlling drugs, you name it – they're all designed to control her behaviour, mainly by suppressing the flight-or-fight reaction of the sympathetic nervous system and mood altering neurotransmitters like dopamine."

"What about her brain?" Steven asked quietly, still not taking his eyes off of the scans.

"I'm honestly at a loss as to how they accomplished such extensive surgeries and implanting procedures within a two week span – the methods and technology are completely unknown to me," he said. "From what we can tell there are two types of implants. The ones here on her cerebellum, temporal lobes and occipital lobe seemed to be designed to amplify her acuity of her senses and motor coordination. Here on the lower part of her brain and brain stem on the pons and hypothalamus are more control implants, these would have homeostatic control over involuntary things like temperature and basal needs like hunger. They've even managed to graft an implant onto her pituitary gland for further hormonal control. That said, it's her cerebral cortex that has me worried."

He moved over to another set of scans. "The cerebral cortex, mainly the frontal lobe here is what makes a person uniquely them. In addition to all of its other functions, its the part of the brain responsible for personality, for moral thinking. This is where the most extensive surgery has been applied. I'm trying not to be too technical here but – these implants have basically circumvented the parts of the brain we have associated with free thought. According to the research notes we found they have been programmed to respond to Ardos' voice patterns to translate them into her 'thoughts' as it were via electrical impulses. They can also be activated remotely by the computer program Dr. Farren was apparently using."

Maxie pinched the bridge of his nose, trying in vain to fend off the headache building behind his eyes. Every medical term, every gesture to those horrid black and white scans sent a sickening blow to his very core. "So what does this all mean in terms of prognosis? What are her treatment options?"

"The DNA alterations I can't do anything about, but as I said they are the least of our concerns anyway. I can try, though it would be an incredibly high risk procedure, to remove the neural implants. From what I've seen in the scans I can remove most of them, but there are several embedded deep into the frontal lobe that I dare not touch."

"But those are the ones suppressing her emotion and personality!"

"Yes, but I run the risk of damaging the surrounding brain tissue if I try to remove them. If that were to occur I could essentially lobotomize her and then there would be no hope for recovery," Villiard said, shaking his head. "I – I do have one possible theory."

"Yes?"

"If I am able to remove all of the other implants her body should return to normal physically, aside from the genetic manipulations of course. We'll have to keep her on a drug regimen until she can produce adequate amounts of the neurotransmitters and hormones that were being suppressed," he said, twisting the pen in his hands nervously. "This is where it gets complicated. We are lucky in the sense that Farren created little to no lesions on her brain when he installed the implants, how he managed that I'll never know, and that Miss Maple is also still relatively young which means her brain plasticity should still be at an adequately high level. I'm thinking that once the other implants are removed and her body chemistry is brought to a more normal level she can undergo a therapy regimen of sorts – to reteach her how to, essentially, be human again. This should, in theory, stimulate the frontal lobe of her brain. I'm hoping that, without input from Ardos or his program that this stimulus will be enough to overload the implants and that her brain plasticity will allow her to lay down new neural pathways to bypass them."

"And you think this is a legitimate option?" Steven asked, his eyes alight with a desperate and feverish hope. "What are the potential risks?"

"Well for starters we might not even get through the removal stage – brain surgery is never a certain thing. A lot can go wrong. If we manage to make it past that phase there's still no guarantee that my idea will even work, like I said it's just a theory and lastly...well..."

"What? What is it?" the Champion pressed. Villiard twisted the pen in his hands again, shifting his weight from side to side as he obviously tried to figure out how to say his next words.

"Miss Maple has been through a high degree of trauma – there was evidence of torture, all of the surgeries, the fact that she was forced to kill one of her own pokémon and there were...pardon me Sirs, but there were signs of sexual assault."

Tile cracked sharply as Steven let out a roar of rage and slammed his fist into the wall, shattering the gemstone set in one of his many rings. Maxie's reaction was far less visceral, but the doctor took one look at him and backed away several paces. Tabitha placed a hand on his arm and murmured quietly. "Boss, you need to calm down – you look like you're going to murder someone."

"Oh, but I am," he growled out before turning his gaze back onto the doctor. "So what are you implying exactly?"

"I – I just want you to be aware of what has happened to her. Even if my theory turns out to be correct I'm not sure if the process would be gradual, or if it would be a simultaneous failure. If the latter were to occur it – it might be too much for her to handle. She'll come back only break mentally and slip into a psychotic state."

"What's the alternative?"

"There really isn't one. I can still remove the other implants and get her body chemistry as close to normal as I possibly can, but she will be largely still without emotion or capable of much free thought."

"How long," Steven said hoarsely. "How long would it take to bring her back?"

"I honestly have no idea, but if I were to guess I would say several months at least," Villiard replied. "Furthermore she would need to be kept in relative isolation. She is still very dangerous and too much stimuli may cause her to react instinctively in what she would consider self defense. I propose that her exposure be limited to one person, preferably in a secluded area."

"But who, a therapist?"

"No, no this would have to be someone she has a previous connection to, a strong and positive bond preferably."

"Then I'll do it."

"With all due respect Mr. Stone, you are needed in our efforts against Cipher," the doctor replied, shaking his head. "The League nor the government can afford to have you disappear for months on end, especially not after the success of our recent counterattack."

"I'll do it."

All eyes turned on him and Maxie stood as straight as he could. Steven looked absolutely murderous, his features cast into sharp relief by the light panels. "You have to be joking," he sneered. "Did you not hear the doctor when he said it should be someone with a positive relationship with her."

"Listen boy," Maxie snapped, summoning as much venom in his voice as he could muster, "you have no idea what she's been through these past few weeks! You didn't have to watch her suffer, you didn't have to watch that lunatic strip her of her humanity!"

"As if you bloody fucking care," Steven hissed. "You've hated her for years!"

Maxie felt sorely tempted to plant his fist into the younger man's jaw, but he drew a steadying breath through his nose and drew up to full height despite the pain rippling through his chest. "Feelings change Mr. Stone. I made that girl a promise, one I intend to keep."

Steven looked aghast at the quiet admission and he seemed at a loss for words. The doctor looked nervously between them and sensing a lull in the conflict he seized his chance. "Might I suggest something?" he enquired timidly. "This doesn't have to be settled right away, it is going to take several, lengthy procedures – it'll take me a week at least. Once the implants have been removed I think it will be safe to bring her out of sedation and then we can preform a very simple test. We'll ask Mr. Asher to meet with Miss Maple and I will monitor the results – if the initial readings are positive then I will sanction the treatment."

"You can't be serious -"

"Mr. Stone, this might be Miss Maple's only chance at recovery. Please, I am speaking for the sake of my patient, put aside this bad blood and give this a chance."

Steven's fury was palpable, but he slowly nodded his head in acquiescence. "Fine, but I reserve the right to end the treatment if I think things are not being...handled properly."

"Agreed."

"So you two are in accordance then?" the doctor asked, looking between them. "Miss Maple has no next of kin to speak for her so I'll be looking to you both to make decisions on her behalf."

"Yes, proceed with the removal of the implants and we'll go from there."

Maxie nodded his agreement. "Then are we finished here? I have preparations to make."

"What preparations exactly?" Steven asked him, narrowing his steel coloured eyes. Maxie met the Champion's stare without falter.

"Oh I'm sorry Mr. Stone, did it slip your mind that my entire life's work has been obliterated and nearly all of my personnel have been killed in the line of duty – needless to say I have a few phone calls to make!"

He turned sharply on his heel and left the room, not bothering to see Steven's reaction. Tabitha followed, quickly taking up his usual spot at his right hand side. "Sir, your orders?"

"Do you have the files of everyone killed on hand?"

"...Yes."

"Then help me call the next of kin," Maxie said softly as they entered the elevator. He looked at the younger man. "If you're up to it."

"Of course Sir."

Maxie threw his glasses down on the desk and rubbed at his eyes.

The facility managers had been kind enough to grant him quarters, both to stay in while May was undergoing treatment and to get his affairs in order for the coming months. He was thankful for it - he was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and he wanted nothing more than to collapse into a bed and forget the world existed for a few hours. Tabitha wasn't faring much better and it looked like the poor lad had aged a decade in the past few hours. Crying mothers, distraught fathers, broken-hearted spouses – they'd heard them all.

"Fuck," Tabitha groaned into his hands. "That was the worst thing I have ever had to do."

Maxie nodded and slumped in his chair. "It never gets any easier..."

"I should hope not. Did we get them all?"

"I believe so, yes."

"So what now?"

"You said all of the remaining outposts were shut down and evacuated yes?"

"Yes Sir."

"Then I think we're done for the evening, you're dismissed."

Tabitha gave his employer a wry grin and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Not bloody likely Sir, there's still a lot to do. Into fire, into hell, keep shoulder to shoulder."

Maxie felt himself smile at the old motto and was suddenly very grateful that Tabitha had been spared. Behind the younger man's dark eyes and easy smiles there was a hardened soldier - a former black ops sniper to be precise. He was one of the few that Maxie knew understood. "Well, there is one more thing."

"I've already got a truck on the way."

"Good man."

"I try," Tabitha smirked. He leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers over his chest. "Boss, if you don't mind me asking – what happened between you and the Maple girl? A few weeks ago you wouldn't have given a flying fuck whether she recovered or not."

"I know," he answered softly. "I – we were the only ones who survived the attack. It's funny, but if she hadn't been there I probably would have been dead too. They incarcerated us at their base and then they took her..."

"I still couldn't believe it when I saw her," Tabitha said, shaking his head. "She did a number on Steven's Skarmory, damn bird still can't walk straight. It's just fucking wrong – to change her into...well whatever she is now...that's one of the cruelest things I've ever seen. Still, why are you so intent on helping her?"

"I don't know to be honest. She – after all that's happened, after everything I've done, after the vicious way I've treated her she still looked at me like I was a human being...like I was a decent man," He paused and huffed a sad laugh, remembering that night in his room when they'd shared a glass of Dalmore scotch and she'd bantered with him fearlessly. "She knew what they were going to do to her, and she still had the nerve to ask me if I was alright. I just – she trusted me Tabitha. I don't know why, I don't understand how she could, but she did and...well, I let her down. I let that lunatic take her, torture her, turn her into that monster. I let her down."

"She's a kind heart," Tabitha said after a pregnant silence.

"Have you forgotten how badly she managed to thrash our sorry hides and save Hoenn from our idiocy?"

"Okay, she's a bit of a badass with a kind heart," the younger man amended with a smirk. Maxie had to smile at that. "She means a lot to you doesn't she."

"More than I care to admit."

"Well then I'd say she's going to be in good hands," Tabitha said. "And you didn't let her down Sir. You're here right now, you're doing everything you can possibly do to help her. You'd only be letting her down if you left, and you haven't."

"...I suppose so."

Tabitha smiled and rose, stretching himself out before clapping the older man on the back one last time. "Get some sleep Boss, they've got May scheduled for her first surgery tomorrow."

With that he left and Maxie glanced out the window into the darkness of the night beyond. He sighed heavily and forced himself to rise. His thoughts turned to May as he carefully eased himself into bed. He tried his damnedest not to picture her on the cold metal table of an operating room, but when he shut his eyes his dreams twisted into nightmares of sightless blue eyes and hands dripping with blood.

"Mr. Asher, might I have a word?"

Maxie turned away from the massive window overlooking the facility's lobby and felt a sickening jolt of panic when he saw Dr. Villiard heading towards him. His fear must have show because the doctor immediately raised his hands in a calming gesture. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to inform you that we've just finished the last operation. Miss Maple is in recovery now and she'll be awake in a few hours."

"I see, and I trust everything went – well?"

"As well as could be expected," Villiard replied with a tired smile. The man looked exhausted and Maxie was felt a surge of gratitude towards him – he'd worked tirelessly on May's case since day one. "I followed the incisions that Farren had made to avoid adding any more trauma to her cranial structure. She should heal up nicely."

"And the implants?"

"I managed to removed all the ones I'd planned to. Now we have to work in a bit of faith."

"So what is the next course of action?"

"The next big step is bringing her out of sedation – this will be the first time she'll have regained consciousness since we rescued her. I want to put her under careful observation for a day or two afterwards, give her a bit of time to recover from all the surgery," he replied. "Then, once I think she's stable enough we'll try exposing her to you and monitoring the response."

"How do you plan on doing that?"

"It's very simple actually. I'm going to use an EEG, very safe and completely noninvasive I assure you, to observe the pattern of her neural oscillations when she sees you for the first time as well as monitoring her physiological response. If the readings look good she can -"

The pager on Villiard's hip suddenly came to life, the shrill electronic warble cutting him off mid-sentence. The doctor immediately retrieved it and frowned. "Come with me. Now."

"What's going on?" he asked as they rushed through the halls.

"It's Miss Maple – she's waking up far earlier than expected!"

"Is that bad?"

"I'm not sure," Villiard said. They entered the ICU and the doctor stopped in front of one of the rooms. Maxie could hear the muffled beeping of some sort of alarm from inside and the voice of who he presumed was a nurse or another doctor. "Here we are, you can observe through this window, but do not come inside."

With that he entered the room, opening the blinds of the window ever so slightly so that Maxie could see inside. Villiard and another man were conversing in hushed tones next to May's bedside. Maxie focused his gaze on her and inhaled sharply. Out of the menacing black armour she seemed so small and frail laying in the hospital bed. He could see where they'd had to cut away parts of her hair to expose the incision sites, now delicately restitched and bandaged. He saw one of her fingers twitch and then her entire hand a short time later. Villiard stepped back from the bed a pace and made the other man follow suit. Maxie couldn't blame them – if she woke with the intention of attacking them there would be little to save the two men from her inhuman strength. He saw her chest rise beneath the thin blankets of her bed as her breathing rhythm became deeper...

And then her eyes opened.

They closed again almost immediately, but for one brief second Maxie could see the twin pools of azure and he felt his heartbeat quicken. She opened her eyes again a few seconds later, blinking against the light until they adjusted to the brightness. For a moment it was like the world stopped as the three men watched her with bated breath, looking for any sign of aggression, any hint of the cold killer instinct she'd displayed days before – but it never came.

She laid there unmoving for several minutes, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Maxie was certain she'd slipped under again, but slowly she started to sit up, looking around the room with wide, unblinking eyes. Through the blinds he struggled to find any trace of emotion in her face, any sign that she'd come back.

The eyes that had given him such hope moments before were glazed and her stonefaced expression did not waver, not even when Villiard and his colleague cautiously started to measure her vital signs. Maxie closed his eyes and turned away, letting out the breath he'd been holding. For one brief second he had been so hopeful that she'd managed to find her way back, but it was painfully obvious that the girl he knew was still locked away, deep within the recesses of her own mind. His hands curled into fists and he tried to swallow the lump in his throat. We'll get you back May, I promise.

The door next to him opened and he immediately drew himself back up to full height. "Well?"

"She appears to be fine, physically anyway – her responses are all within the expected range."

"Has she said anything?"

"No, she likely won't for quite a while. I was going to tell you before the interruption – there was a neural implant in the Broca's area of her frontal lobe that had an inhibitory function."

"Meaning?"

"It rendered her mute, unable to talk. The effect isn't permanent, but it'll be a little while before she fully regains her powers of speech. Now, she can comprehend what people are saying just fine, that area of the brain was unaltered – she just can't respond."

She couldn't have called for help if she'd wanted to...he tortured her and she couldn't even scream

Maxie reined in the burning anger blossoming in his chest and drew a deep breath. "Since she is awake sooner than expected what does this mean for your intention to monitor her response to my presence?"

"I still want to monitor her condition for the next day or so and get her started on the drug therapy. This is when we're liable to see complications from the imbalance in her body chemistry," Villiard replied, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. "I know it may seemed rush, but the sooner she begins her therapy with you the better. If all goes well will you be prepared to take her relatively soon afterwards?"

"Yes."

"Good. Her things have already been brought here and packed for you – where is it you intend to bring her?"

"My family estate, about an hour's drive north of Lilycove."

"Good, I'm comforted by the fact you're so close to the city. If you must take her to hospital, ask for Dr. Strickland or his wife Dr. Strowbridge – they're the heads of psychiatry and neurology at Lilycove General respectively. They're old colleagues of mine and the best in their fields."

"Thank you, I shall keep that in mind."

Villiard smiled, though it was tight and somewhat sad. "You're sure you're up to this Mr. Asher? You've suffered a great deal of trauma yourself and this is a daunting endeavour. There is no shame in saying you don't feel up to it."

For a moment Maxie considered the doctor's words. The man was offering him an out, an opportunity to wash his hands clean of May Maple's fate. It was like standing at a crossroads – there was a path that would lead him away from her, he could forget about the confounding feelings she brought up in him, he could leave her to her fate and bury those feelings deep until he forgot they had ever existed. The other road...

He thought about how those azure eyes had flashed so brightly during their battle, how she'd smiled at him when he'd poured her a drink, how gently she'd held them at their last goodbye. How could he abandoned one of the few people outside of his organization to treat him like a real person. How could he abandon this foolishly brave girl with the soul of burnished steel and the fierce, but gentle heart it guarded. "I made that girl a promise...one I intend to keep. I owe her a great debt."

Villiard's tight smile softened and he relaxed visibly. "I was hoping you'd say that. If this plan works she's going to have a rough road ahead. Right now, without that fiend's input she is completely helpless – like a computer with a broken program. She doesn't really know how to function as a person anymore, she'll go through the daily motions, eating, sleeping etcetera, but aside from that she will simply be existing. She's incredibly vulnerable and must be treated very gently."

"I understand that."

"I know you do," the doctor said, moving into a walk and gestured for Maxie to follow. "I just want you to be aware of how important your role is going to be in her recovery and what that responsibility is going to entail. I need to observe her to confirm my suspicions, but she'll likely very fatigued and ill over the next couple of weeks, she'll need help regaining her powers of speech, relearning social graces, and she'll have to be guided into tapping into her emotions. I know this sounds daunting, but what it all boils down to is you simply treating her as a person – you just need to be, perhaps gentler than you normally would."

They came to the ledge overlooking the lobby again where the doctor had first run into him. Villiard turned to face him, leaning his back against the railing with his hands shoved into the pockets of his lab coat. "I have the utmost faith in you, you know."

Maxie leaned against the railing beside him and shot the doctor a crooked smile. "I'm glad somebody does."

"If you're referring to Mr. Stone's demeanour he's merely concerned. He's very fond of Miss Maple, the two go back a long way. They don't always get along mind you, like the worst pair of siblings you've ever seen, but he'd take a bullet for her in a heartbeat and I know Miss Maple would do the same."

"I'm surprised you allowed me to take her, over him."

The doctor's cobalt eyes twinkled. "You wear your heart on your sleeve more than you think Mr. Asher. You care a great deal about Miss Maple – more than just owing her a debt, that's obvious to see and I suspect the feeling is mutual which is why you're the superior candidate. Make her feel safe, make her feel loved and I think we can bring Miss Maple back."

His pager beeped and he quietly dismissed himself, though he was still smiling when he left Maxie leaning against the railing. He gazed out over the lobby and the people milling about below, out past the massive windows to the snow squall storming over the island. His heart beat uncomfortably fast when he thought about the doctor's parting words. Either the man was far more perceptive than he'd given him credit for, or he had truly lost the ability to hide his thoughts. He owed her a great deal, that was true – if he'd protected her better, if he'd planned their transport more carefully...

It's more than that you half-wit, even the doctor knows that.

No, he was obligated to -

We've had this argument already, liar the little voice in the back of his mind hissed viciously, you care and you cannot stop caring.

Maxie removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to fend off the fast building headache. "Christ I'm an idiot," he groaned. He felt like a wet behind the ears cadet again getting screamed at by the drill sergeant, like he was the green boy of seventeen who couldn't meet the eye of the pretty girl across the room.

Fuck, if she ever recovered he was going to thoroughly lecture her on how unfair it was to make him realize that he still had a heart and then promptly carve out a place for herself in it.

Maxie paced the room, hands clasped behind his back and head down. He'd never been fond of hospitals; the sterile smell, the bleak whiteness – it made his skin crawl.

The room he was in looked to be the standard examination room, save for one thing – the EEG machine humming softly in the corner. The door behind him suddenly opened and he felt his heart leap into his throat. Dr. Villiard carefully eased the wheelchair over the threshold, taking great care not to jostle its blindfolded occupant and settled her next to the machine. May remained still and silent, hands folded neatly in her lap. She moved her head ever so slightly in Maxie's direction and tilted her head up. She inhaled sharply and he realized that she was scenting the air.

"Is she -"

"She's fine, she's just trying to get her bearings and locate everyone in the room – it's a reflexive instinct," Villiard said and carefully began settling the interwoven lattice of electrodes onto May's head. "She is fully conscious, but I want to be able to compare her baseline neural oscillations and compare the readings I acquire when she sees you for the first time."

Once he seemed satisfied with the placement of the nodes he moved behind the computer monitor. After a few more minutes of clicking and calibrating he looked at Maxie and nodded. "Alright, we're set to go. I want you to remove the blindfold and just wait until I tell you to move on to the next step."

Maxie turned to face May, who'd apparently honed in on his position and was gazing directly at him despite her blindfold. For a moment it was like all of the air had left the room and he realize as he knelt down and reached towards her that his hands were shaking. He reached behind her head and gently undid the knot of length of cloth binding her eyes. Her hands twitched slightly at the contact, but she remained otherwise perfectly still as the fabric slid away.

Her pupils contracted from the sudden exposure to light and he was greeted by the breath-taking shade of blue that had haunted his dreams. They focused on him with hawk-like precision, drinking in every detail of the man kneeling before her, but her expression remained impassive and he knew that she was simply analyzing him, cold and calculating like a machine. He felt his eyes burn - it was hard, so hard not to reach out to her. He wanted nothing more than to pull her close and whisper to her that everything was going to be alright.

"Okay, phase two – I want you to talk to her. Say anything you like, I just need her to hear your voice."

Maxie swallowed thickly. "Miss Maple...May, do you know who I am?"

She blinked.

"We've known each other for quite some time. We met ten years ago, in Slateport – do you remember that?"

Was that a slight furrowing of her brow or a trick of the light?

"We were working together to stop Cipher when they caught us. I made you a promise that I wouldn't leave you behind," he continued. "And I didn't. May, you must remember. I know you're in there somewhere."

"...Mr. Asher, please move to the final phase and touch her hand. Please do it slowly, sudden movements will startle her."

Carefully, making sure that she could see his slow and deliberate movements, he laid his hands over hers, still folded so tidily in her lap. Her skin was cool to the touch and he rubbed his thumb across her knuckles, hoping to trigger some sort of reaction, but her hands remained still and unmoving.

"That will do Mr. Asher, I think we -"

The doctor's voice suddenly became muffled, overcome by the sudden ringing in Maxie's ears until it was drowned out by the high-pitched whine altogether. He was suddenly very aware of his heartbeat, thumping loud and steady in his chest as his vision blurred and was overtaken by murky shadows. Unfamiliar images flashed in his mind's eye, visions that did not belong to him. A torchic chirping cheerfully as it hopped unsteadily along a forest path, chasing a man in a red and black uniform through a damp cave, the smell of sulfur and ash and the towering hulk of Groudon standing in a sea of molten rock, a silver-haired man grinning, twin caskets draped in black cloth and white lilies, a man with blue hair and eyes like midwinter baring his teeth like a beast...memories...

As soon as they had come the flood of pictures ceased and the room came back into focus. The ringing dissipated and he could hear the doctor's voice again, tight with worry. "Sir, Mr. Asher can you hear me?"

"Ah, yes," Maxie replied slowly as he reluctantly let go of May's hands. His tongue felt like lead and it was suddenly hard to speak. He rose, dusting off his trousers as he turned to Villiard. "I – I'm not sure what just happened."

"...I think I might have an idea. Come here, I want to show you the readings," he babbled and quickly beckoned Maxie to his side. Maxie watched as the doctor brought up several screen shots of their session graphs. The cyclic rise and fall and jagged peaks of the oscillations meant little to him so he chose to watch May over the top of the monitor as Villiard spoke. She held his gaze, hardly blinking as she tilted her head ever so slightly to the side.

"These are her baselines here – now compare them to when she first saw you. Not much change, bit of spiking in her Beta wave activity, but nothing drastic. Same sort of pattern here when you spoke, another spike in Beta activity, but there was a small change in Gamma waves that time. The change isn't statistically significant, but in this case it could mean something. Now, this is where it gets interesting," Villiard said and enlarged the third window that held the graph of the third phase when he'd touched her hands. "Beta activity somewhat and Alpha activity rises. We often associate this with relaxed mental states. Then this – the order of Delta waves rises dramatically."

"Why is that important?"

"This level of Delta wave activity is usually associated with SWS, a stage of deep sleep in the regular sleep cycle, however her Alpha and Beta waves don't suit the profile. It indicates some level of consciousness despite the Delta wave activity. What exactly happened at this point in time?"

"I'm not sure...the room faded out and I could see things, flashes of images I was not familiar with. It was all very incoherent, but I think they were from May's perspective."

"Yes, I think those may have been some of Miss Maple's memories – you see I've seen this EEG profile before in Psychic-type pokémon and the trainers who use them. It's generally indicative of some level of communication or information transferal."

"How is this possible?"

"We have to keep in mind that Miss Maple has shown an aptitude for communicating on a nonverbal level before when she encountered Groudon all those years ago. This ability is something of her own, not something Ardos forced on her."

"So what does all of this mean exactly?"

"It means that, even if it was a subconscious act, Miss Maple reached out to you and under her own power to boot," Villiard replied with a weary smile. "These findings are extremely positive. You have the green light Mr. Asher. May can go home."

Maxie looked at May, her hands still folded demurely in her lap and azure eyes focused on him. For a moment, just a moment he swore she looked almost pleased.

Island Wolf: Okay, phew that was a difficult one to write - I haven't used that much bio lingo in a long time. Now my area of expertise is actually in the field of Ecology and Conservation Biology. Cellular, Microbiology and Neurology are the fields I have the least amount of training in and, I'm being completely honest when I say I totally talked out of my ass for the EEG session haha. I can talk all day about the inter-connectivity of ecosystems and subsequent subsidiaries transferred across food webs and the resulting trophic cascades, but ask me about the functions of the brain? Nooope. That said if there's any neurology/cellular biology specialists out there feel free to correct any mistakes I may have made here.