When a life fades away

1. The night that stopped the world

AN: Welcome to chapter 2. I wanna thank everyone who read the first one and I hope you enjoyed it.

"What a day!". These should be the thought of Clemont that night sitting in the balcony of his penthouse to enjoy some breeze from the Lumiouse night.

He was now sipping absently his scotch and smoking an Alolan cigar he bought during a trip in that exotic place so far from his comfortable homeland tasting the aroma while thinking about the day.

He was waken up by a call from his sister Bonnie to have breakfast together with their father Meyer since she was back from Hoenn and wanted to catch up with him. He knew that he should be head to the gym and to his company office after that so he was obliged to wear smartly and after climbing down from his bed he put his blue suit on and headed off for the meeting.

It was on his way back from the nearby cafè with his siter that he saw him, The Ash Ketchum fiercely battling against no other than the Kalos Champion herself.

And the calm, smart businessman felt it. He felt his enthusiasm, his straightforward attitude, his charisma, and his voice broke.

All of sudden he called the company and took the day off.

He wanted to see him, to see that boy again, the only one that put everything he had conquered on the line for him. Because he believed in him.

Sprinting like he has never sprinted before, he dashed through the stadium complex in hope to catch Ash Ketchum, his beloved sister after him, ecstatic to see him after more than three years.

But he never found him. He should have expected this from him.

A wild crowd of reporters was desperately trying to find Ash and question him about the match and his hopes for the next one in the top four against the Sinnoh champion that would be held in two days.

But there was no sight of said boy anywhere.

Sighing to himself, Clemont went away and, against his will, decided to go and check the latest apps his company was developing.

For a 20 years old boy to own a company with employees and to afford a penthouse in the centre of the most expensive city in the world, you have either to be rich or to be so incredibly smart to change the world itself with your great inventions.

And the last was Clemont's case, but it wasn't the only reason he achieved so much at a such young age.

The other reason is Ash Ketchum. He was the boy that changed his life. He had showed to the little, scared inventor a world of determination and recklessy and he managed to change in the soul the blonde gym leader.

With a new resolution that came with the end of their journey together, Clemont started his new life, managing to help Lumiouse and the whole Kalos region to stand again after the whole Team Flare breakdown.

It was after 6 months that he took the next step: Open his software and robotic company.

Even if he was celebrated like a hero in the aftermath of the Kalos crisis, literally no one believed that an 18 years old boy could found and maintain a technological company in those times with so many other companies out there.

And so now, he was alone. He managed to invest money and gather a sum that could help him realize his dream but that wasn't enough.

After a year of pleading every single wealthy man in Kalos in vain and after so many nights awake working extra harder to pay every bill and trying the best to maintain what he had achieved he was broken.

He couldn't work harder and, since he was completely burned out, poor Clemont wasn't able to think about anything new and it was now only a matter of time before the financial breakdown.