Shadows on the Heart Window to the soul
by Flygon
Chapter 10

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Just a slight caution. This and some of the other chapters in the next upload are a bit longer then I normally do them. This is to avoid having a giant cliffhanger in the mix. Sometimes I will do a six chapter upload to avoid this. Enjoy

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New pokemon, Old friends, and A Heart Revealed

"Wow Ash," Misty said with a grin. "This isn't anything like the other journeys that we did."

"What makes you say that Mist." Ash retorted quizzically, adding the poke ball that contained a shellos to his belt.

"You've already gotten six pokemon, and haven't even gotten your first badge." She chuckled. "On your first journey you got your second badge and had only three pokemon. And even then you never went out of your way to catch many. Plus, you are really training them, now. you only started to do that on your way to Indigo Plateau before, and used the same pokemon in the Orange Island. Through Johto you never really went out to catch pokemon, it just happened. And I read the same thing about the Hoenn League. You have changed."

"I have not," Ash said with a touch of anger.

"Yes you have,"

"Have not,"

"Have so,"

"Have not," Ash nearly shouted.

"Ash," Misty said with a sad little smile, before Brock could intervene. "I didn't mean it in a bad way." She looked at Ash and her smile changed. "I meant that you have grown so much from the little kid I fished out of the river."

Again both felt that line. The one they had crossed days ago. And now both were afraid to cross it again. They had done so once, but did they dare do so again. They stood there, locked in each others gaze, each afraid to move, each afraid to speak. Afraid of what the other may say, if one spoke ones heart, yet neither knowing, Ash felt his heart pound, and his mouth went dry. He looked at Misty in wonder and thought 'how beautiful'. His hand went to his pocket, reaching for an envelope that was there, waiting to be given.

Misty felt her heart in her eyes, and it was beating for this young man. She could no longer consider him a boy. Her lips and her heart yearned to speak to him, but something stopped her. Fear. Fear that if she spilled her heart out to him, it would not be returned. How could it. despite the talk with Sandy. Despite the assurances, She couldn't be worthy. Yet she wanted to tell him. She felt it with every fibre in her, and still could do nothing.

Ash wondered why she couldn't hear his heart beating like this. He was certain that it could be heard all the way back in Kanto. And she was so much nearer. His hand had the envelope half way out, and he felt his foot begin to move. To take that first step towards her. Once he took that first step, the rest would be easy. His knee bent and he felt the heel leave the ground.

"Guys, Dinner!" Brock yelled from the camp.

They both looked toward the sound, and when Ash looked back, Misty's eyes were down. And when Misty looked up, Ash had averted his eyes. Both coloured slightly. The moment was lost. Ash found the envelope deep inside his pocket again, and his hands were out. He sighed, and started to walk back to camp.

The meal was eaten in silence between Ash and Misty. The others looked on, wondering what had happened. What spell had done this. Brock tried to break the silence, but Susie sensing it wasn't the right thing to do, stopped him by tapping his foot with hers. Jessie and James also knew something had happened, but chose not to say anything. They sat there in the night, watching two people who had befriended them instead of sending them to jail instead, and could do nothing to help them. The night deepened.

In the days to follow, Ash added many pokemon to his collection, and trained his current ones judiciously. He watched as his chimchar grew in strength, gaining attacks like brick break, double team, shadow claw, overheat. His Shinx gained shockwave, double team, flash, thunder wave. His bronzor, stunky, and the shellos that he had caught gained attacks and power with the training he was using. Then one day, in a battle with a young trainer, his chimchar evolved into a monferno, and his shinx became a luxio. Then came his first gym battle. Roark, the gym leader fought Ash well, but Ash won. His Luxio landing the finishing iron tail on Roark's cranidos, after his monferno got knocked out by a zen-headbutt. He looked at the coal badge he had just won and thought to himself 'If only Misty could care for him, this would be better'.

Ash focused on his training. Trying to drive out the feelings that he was having. Misty couldn't feel the same way. He had been childish, self centered, ego driven. He had insulted her, had spurned several offers from her to allow him to use her pokemon in battles. rejected her advice. He remembered her calling him little boy, dense, and several other names. If she did care about him, would she have done that? They wandered and he got several more pokemon including an abra who he trained up and it evolved to a kadabra, before he sent it to the lab, to get his luxio back. He also caught a machop, buizel, and a murkrow who suddenly landed on a dusk stone and evolved. He kept the honchkrow and sent back the starly that he had caught in Sandgem town but never used. He turned around and used honchkrow and his monferno to win his battle with Gardenia, of the Eterna city gym to win his second badge, the Forest Badge. They had left Eterna City about two hours behind them and set up camp, when a familiar voice called out to him.

"Ash?" A young voice called in apparent wonder. "Is that you?"

Ash turned and saw Max and May standing near the camp, staring at him and the group. Brock invited them to stay for dinner, and maybe breakfast. And Max release his pokemon. A pair of Ralts. One was a Kirlia, but the other was a Gallade now. Max explained that his father had sent him to the grassy area near their gym and he had caught the male ralts, and two days later a second was found curled, asleep in their garden. It had walked right up to Max, and slapped the button of one of his empty poke balls and didn't even struggle. It was the same ralts that he had befriended while Max was with Ash on his Hoenn adventure. He also brought out a lotad, who proceeded to douse him with a watergun attack, and then showed them a pair of aron. He had picked up a starly in Sinnoh and now it was a staravia. He also told them that he had a makuhita, a sableye, and a pair of pokemon from Steven, the Devon Corporation Presidents son. With instructions to pass one on to Ash for all the help he had given with team magma and aqua.

During this Misty started to get worried. Despite what she had been told, May was constantly looking towards Ash, and Misty didn't like the look. She watched as Brock, May, Max and Ash gave a brief tour of Hoenn to Susie, who had never been there for long, and also James and Jessie who while there, had never taken their leisure to see it. She felt as if a bit of herself died every time they laughed about something they had done together. She was hearing about times when Ash was with another girl, not her, and enjoying himself.

She was glad when they all decided to turn in, and even gladder when Max and May turned down the offer of their tents. Jessie, and Susie climbed into their sleeping bags and dropped almost instantly to sleep, but Misty didn't. She saw May and Ash near the fire, that Brock had banked to burn all night and be used to fix breakfast. She watched as they walked near the edge of camp. She watched from the tent's entrance, as they stopped and turned to each other. She saw May's lips move and knew that she was talking to Ash though she could not make out the words. She seemed to talk for quite a bit of time when suddenly he threw his arms around her, and whirled her around before hugging her closely and for a long time. Then he held her out, happiness and joy so apparent on his face that it looked to Misty that he was glowing. He brought her closer to him and kissed her on the cheek and Misty felt a pain in her chest as if she had just been stabbed. She whirled from the tent entrance and climbed into her sleeping bag, feeling the tears flow like a waterfall. All the while, in her mind, she heard 'I've lost him...I've lost him'. She had waited too long. She had not been brave enough. All this came to her as she cried silently. The one thing that she had cherished above anything else that she could remember was in the arms of another. Her worst fear had come true, her heart had been broken.The heaviness in her heart now dragged her, crying, down into sleep.

Morning came and Ash woke before anybody else. He went to the small stream that flowed nearby, finding the spot where the water was heated by underground heat, stripped off his shirt and scrubbed his face, neck and chest. He shook himself and laughed. May's news lifted his spirits so far that he thought that a pigeot couldn't go over him. He savoured that moment.

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"Ash," May began as they faced each other. "While we were home, My father told Max and me something that I need to tell you, so please don't interrupt. You remember Max's and my father was named Norman. What you didn't know is that his last name is Neilson, or at least it was after he changed it. He told us that he made a big mistake and only now, after he had a family, did he realize it. He told us that for a brief while he hated his father, who he thought had betrayed the memory of his and his sisters dead mother by going out with another woman. He said that he had left home as soon as he was old enough and changed his name. He said that he realized that he shouldn't have felt that but that was a while back and he was to ashamed to try to make up with his dad, until two weeks ago." She had paused for a moment. "My dad's real last name was Oak, and Professor Oak is his father. That means since your mother married him, that your Max's and my Uncle. So how about a hug, Uncle?"

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Ash whistled all the way back to camp with a grin on his face. but he stopped when he saw Brock and Susie standing in a clearing, They were embracing, Ash smiled. He knew that Brock would respect her and not do anything to hurt her. Then he heard them talking.

"Brock, I wish you had told me how you felt a while back," Susie was saying. "Then I never would have teamed up with Zane."

"I was always afraid, Susie." Brock replied softly, almost too softly for Ash to hear. "Afraid that I wasn't worthy, afraid that you wouldn't love me in return. I was afraid to have my heart broken."

Ash slowly made his way back to camp now. His hand going to the envelope in his pocket and pulling it out. He suddenly made up his mind. He started to trot back to camp. He would tell Misty. They had shared more thing together then anybody he knew save his mother and Professor Oak. He felt his heart begin to beat faster, and it seemed that he wasn't trotting, but gliding along the trail. He came into camp, and saw Misty standing in the entrance to the girls tent. He smiled and started to walk towards her, the hand with the envelope coming up slowly, until she raised her eyes to him.

"Mist?"

Misty had slept fitfully despite her exhaustion, both physical and emotional. She still felt the keen pain from the sight she witnessed last night, but she buried it in anger. Ash and her had shared more times together then that May. And now Ash was throwing all that away to be with her. How dare he. And how dare she. Misty woke to find the camp deserted and herself alone. 'Figures' she thought, 'Ash leaves me to go with some young squirt, and after all the times we had. Why not the rest of the camp too'. She didn't wake Meowth, but got up quietly and stepped out of the tent entrance, looking at the ground. Then she heard footsteps coming fast, only to slow down. She looked up and her gaze was filled with stone and steel as she looked right at Ash's shirtless form, some water still glistening on his torso, she heard him speak.

"What do you want?" She said flatly.

Ash stopped dead in his tracks. Misty was looking at him with a gaze that held no feeling save anger and her tone mirrored it. His hand with the envelope which had been partially extended, dropped to his side and he stammered out a few syllables before he could speak coherently.

"I...I...I got some great news last night from May."

"Really," her tone dripping scorn. "Did it occur to you that I don't give a rattata's rear about any news. Keep your news, and live with it."

Ash felt himself go cold. He felt the envelope slip from numb fingers as he faced Misty, ready to offer his heart, and she was throwing it back at him. She hated him. He knew it and had known it. It was the only explanation. He turned toward the boys tent, head down.

Misty saw something drop from his hand and then he turned to the tent that he shared with the other guys. She moved to pick it up. It was marked 'To Misty' and the flap was loose. She looked briefly at the top and saw some red paper. At first she started make ready to pull it out, but stopped herself. It was probably a note telling her that he would be going with May.

"Ash,"

He whirled at the sound of his name, hope lighting in his face quickly. She had the envelope in her hand, with a part of the red paper he had worked on for an hour poking out. Then she deliberately and slowly tore the envelope in two.

"next time you want to leave a love note to me,DON'T!" and she tossed it toward the fire, but it never reached it.

Ash watched her tear it, and felt a pain as if she had just torn his heart open. His vision blurred as she spun toward the path to the stream, angrily snatching a towel off a rack that stood there and stalked off into the light forest. Tears flowed and he couldn't stop them, not that he made any attempt. They dripped off his chin onto his bare chest and continued down without stopping. He scrubbed his eyes once looking into the tent that he shared. It was empty save for pikachu who slept in her sleeping bag next to his. Then that vision became blurred as fresh tears came to take the place of the ones he had wiped away. The pain he felt now was almost unbearable. The one person he wanted more then life itself had just practically said she hated him. He stood there, unable to move. Pain in his heart causing him to cry even more. He didn't know how long he had been standing there when he heard footsteps. He did not want to see anybody. He didn't want anybody to see him, especially like this. He ran.

Ash didn't know where he was headed, and he didn't care. The reason for this whole trip hated him. He couldn't bear the thought of anything without Misty. Even if he could bring himself to take the Sinnoh trophy and then the Indigo Plateau, It would mean nothing without Misty next to him. He had wanted her to be with him for the rest of their lives. Now all his dreams were dead. Suddenly he tripped over something and fell face forward onto the grass. He had remembered some pokemon that had scattered in front of his headlong run. But the voice he heard was from no pokemon, nor from anybody who had a soul

"Well well," A grating tenor said. "Somebody up there must like me, now I don't have to hunt you down, Get him."

Ash rolled onto his back and had a quick vision of greenish hair on top of a dirty sneering face. Then a large bluish black thing slammed into his chest and all he knew was agony. He screamed in pain.

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Misty came back into camp to find it in chaos. Brock, Susie, Jessie, James, Max, May, and now Gary and Duplica were moving all over the place. She was about to ask them what they were doing when Max and May spotted her.

"Misty," Max called out, beating his sister by a heartbeat. "Where's Ash?"

"How should I know?" She answered. "And why should I care?" And she turned towards the tent. Only to be spun around by a furious Max.

"Where is he?" He shouted.

"Probably at your camp, waiting for some sweet compassion from you sister," She turned on May. "I saw you last night, hugging and kissing Ash."

"I'M TALKING TO YOU. I CAME HERE ONLY TO FIND MY UNCLE ASH, AND IF YOU KNOW WHERE HE IS, THEN TELL ME." Max roared at her, glaring.

"Uncle?" Misty's voice was just above a whisper and the anger left her face once the boys words registered in her brain. "Ash?" Her eyes grew strickened, and she sank to her knees.

Gary came over and quickly explained about May and Max, ending with a plea for her help.

"I don't know..." Misty sobbed.

Then Susie came over. She held two pieces of red paper each cut into the shape of half a heart. this barely registered with Misty, but what did were the words she could read when Susie put the two halves together.

Property of Ash Ketchum - Once given Forever given

Misty's eyes grew wide she sank to the ground sobbing.

Gary fought back a wave of panic. Then he took action.

"Does anybody here have a psychic with teleport."

"I have two," Max said and called his Kirlia and Gallade.

"Duplica, we need two of your ditto, and you."

She nodded and called out two of her best. She knew what Gary was planning, so she told them to transform into the psychics. Meanwhile Gary went to Brock and asked to have his shirt. Brock complied without any hesitation. He told Brock to stand alone in the middle of the camp and not let anybody get close to him. Gary stuffed one end of the shirt into his pocket and ran to the tent and got one of Ash's shirts. He let the now three Gallades and the Kirlia feel the shirt keying in on the person to whom it belonged and the four nodded. Gary looked to Max and to Duplica and gave a nod.

"Take us to Ash." They both said, and the four pokemon, Gary, Max, and Duplica were gone.

They appeared in a small clearing. There was a burnt out fire, signs of a very hasty departure by somebody, and Ash. He was lying on the ground with a large bluish mark on his bare chest. When Gary looked closer he saw multiple small punctures in the blueish area, and when he ran Ash's white t-shirt across it, there was greenish colour mixed with red. he came to one conclusion.

"Poisoned." he said grimly. He saw some tracks in the dirt two people and a snakelike thing.

He saw a lean-to and yanked the long poles out, then told Max he need his shirt and began to take off his. He used the shirts and poles to make a stretcher. Gary and Duplica loaded Ash onto it and he passed Brocks shirt around to the psychic pokemon. He told Duplica and Max that they needed to get back to Brock.

Then they were back. And Gary found himself having to restrain Misty. He handed her over to Brock and pulled out his cell phone and cursed.

"No signal," he said stuffing the phone into his pocket.

"I got a good signal," Duplica said, then grinned. "That satellite phone that you said was worthless."

He took the phone and punched in the code for the Eterna City emergency unit, when somebody answered he spoke.

"This is Gary Oak, I am at a camp just about an hour or two walk from the city on the Eastern road, and I have a young trainer that has been poisoned by a pokemon attack. The pattern of the wounded area is roughly spade like, it may have been a snake type pokemon. The venom is greenish and there are multiple puncture wounds in the affected area. We need an ambulance with anti-venom stat."

He received word that one was on it's way. then he hung up. Then he dialed the Gym in Eterna city and asked if they could send out something to transport them back to the city.

He heard a siren and saw the Ambulance.

"How the hell you guys get here so fast?"

"Call came in ten minutes ago." The ambulance guy stated. "Female, saying that some kid, a boy, was hit by a seviper poison tail attack. We were sent out, Just got a call rerouting us here. Original call came from a satellite phone and was located about half a mile from here."

"we used psychic pokemon to locate and teleport him here."

"Smart move." The Attendant said pulling out a vial and a hypo. "There wasn't any way to get the ambulance into that area.

Gary watched as the attendant gave Ash three shots of the stuff from the vial. One in the neck, and one in each of his thighs. Then they started to move him onto a gurney. Then Misty was there.

"Gary where are they taking him?"

"Eterna Hospital." The attendant said in response. "They have the best poison control unit in the city."

"Can I come?" She pleaded.

The attendant looked at her, then nodded. and she followed the gurney. She climbed in after they had lifted Ash in and she sat on a bench next to him. She heard the doors close, since she refused to take her eyes off of his face. She felt two warm bodies on either side of her. One said Pika? in a sad tone, and she heard the other say it would be ok. She gripped Ash's hand and held it up to her face and the tears flowed. his hand was cold and their was a grayness that was creeping across his face. The attendant hooked up the monitor, and then there was a clear beeping that was in time with his heartbeat. She heard the attendant tell the driver to get moving. They started moving and Misty watched Ash's face grow grayer.

Misty listened to the beeping as it seemed to slow down. She was losing him. And the attendant verified it by saying he was slipping, and to go faster. She gripped Ash's hand tighter and pressed it to her face until she felt his ring digging into the skin beneath her eye. She was crying fully now, her tears refusing to stop. She felt his hand slipping from hers, because it was soaked with tears, and then she saw his eyes open slightly. His brown eyes sought hers, and he smiled weakly.

"Mist," Ash whispered weakly. "I'm sorry for upsetting you."

"No Ash," she replied softly, clutching his hand tighter to her face, ignoring the pain as one of the stones on it seemed to cut into her skin.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't be your dream man, Mist." His eyes started to close. "I would have given anything to make you happy." His eyes closed, and the beeping slowed even more.

"No, Ash." She nearly sobbed, watching her tears roll off his hand and drop onto his bare, and wounded chest. "Don't go, I need you."

She felt something in her dieing as surly as Ash was. She saw him under a chandelier in the pokemon tower, she saw him laying motionless and gray after getting hit by two attacks from mew and mew two. It played out in her head over and over again. Each time something brought him back, each time something saved him for her, and she had never told him what he meant to her. All this time and she kept giving in to a fear of rejection. Now she had rejected him, and this was the result. Her heart opened up and supplied more tears. She looked at his bare chest and watched as it rose and fell. She watched, with her heart breaking, as it seemed to slow. She watched as a glistening blue tear fell onto his chest, and seemed to be drawn into the wound, followed by more but this didn't fully register.

She saw his eyes flutter open again, his mouth moved but he seemed to weak to say anything, and more blue tears poured off his hand onto his chest.

"Don't leave me, Ash." She was begging. The blue tears on his chest was now a small puddle and the beeping was coming slower and slower. "Ash, please don't leave me. I love you." and she wept anew as his eyes closed and he seemed to sigh. She seemed to be chanting 'I love you', as the monitor slowed. Through the blur of her tears, which still fell on his chest, she saw the numbers going down. The heartbeat slowed from twelve to ten, then seven, then five. All the while she continued to chant the three words that she had been trying to say to him for almost two years. Then his body spasmed,arching upwards against the straps that held him to the gurney and he started to vomit. She thought he was dying. The vomit was the colour of green mold, and there was some red and blue mixed in with it. The attendant turned his head quickly and placed a pan under it to catch it. Then she heard the monitor was beeping faster, and the numbers there were going up. The heartbeat was showing thirty-five, thirty-nine, forty-seven, and climbing. She gasped as his hand clenched hers and she looked at it.

She saw the colour coming back into his hand, his arm, and his face. His teeth were clenched and his eyes opened up wide with pain. His hands clenched so tightly that she felt his ring break her skin, but she didn't care. He was fighting. More vomit flowed, this more greenish then before, and again the blue specks mixed in. Something about the colour sparked in her mind, and she looked at his hand. She saw that the ring seemed to digging into his skin and then noticed something else about it. The gold was unblemished, the gold letter A was still set on a black onyx setting, but the four blue stones were gone. The blue stones were gone. Her mind seemed to lock on this. The blue stones were gone... Then she remembered.

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She was five, and she had fallen into a tank filled with tenticool who had stung her repeatedly. Her sisters had given her a bath in some salted water and poured some blueish sand into it. They told her it was a secret and she shouldn't say anything. They told her that the sand was crushed tears of the deep, from the pokemon Kyogre and it would counter the poison.

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She was back in the ambulance, staring at a ring that had had four deep blue stones set in it. She saw the blue liquid on his fingers and on reflex pushed that part of his hand against his injured chest and tried to rub all the blue liquid she could onto his chest. She started crying again, this time for Ash and she leaned over him, letting her tears fall on his hand and chest, while she smeared the blue liquid on and into the small punctures there. Still she chanted 'I love you' while she prayed that he heard her. The attendant grabbed her hands and tried to pull them away from Ash's chest and she fought him. She muttered that she had to get as much of the tears of the deep into the wounds, and the attendant grabbed her chin.

"What do you know of the tears of the deep?" He asked her. "How could a kid like you know of Kyogre's tears?"

As quickly as she could she told him where she grew up, who she was, and how she knew. Then to her amazement, he pulled out a vial that was one quarter full of blueish sand like stuff.

"Are you sure about this." he asked, and at her nod he grabbed a IV bag marked 'Saline', cut a small hole into the top of it and poured half of the contents of his vial into it.

The liquid turned almost instantly a rich deep blue, and he promptly inserted the needle from the IV bag into the tube of the other IV bag that was in Ash's arm. The attendant sealed the bag with sterile tape and hung it next to the other bag.

Forty minutes later Ash was in a hospital room, Misty sitting in a chair next to him and two pokemon sitting on a small table nearby. Pikachu was sleeping but Meowth was awake and watching the girl who was his trainer, and the guy, who she loved. The monitor was showing his vitals as strong and steady and the doctors had been told the reason. Two of the older doctors simply nodded and had to restrain the younger colleges from writing it up for publication. They explained that it would be different if there were dozens of Kyogres, but there was only one.

Ash remained asleep for three days. And Misty held vigil at his side. Shortly after he was admitted, his friends came over to visit him. The hospital stretched the rules and allowed two to come in, even though Misty was still there. They talked, mainly to Misty, since Ash was asleep. They all told her not to blame herself, and she was not at fault but she still felt that she was. It was she who had pushed him away. It was her who had gone against her own heart and allowed jealousy to hurt the one she loved. Brock would bring her food and see that she ate, though she refused anything that would have her release the hand she held. Misty would sleep in the chair holding Ash's hand, and wake like that, to resume her vigil.

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Trying to keep these chapter files at between 16 - 25K, sorry this one was so long, but I didn't want to end with a cliffhanger. I would like some commentary on the story, Good? Bad? Meh? Will be formatting another 5 chapters real soon. Till then, Flygon say bye.