Vanish

Chapter 24

"Oooooh, Professor Oak, will you please show me all of Ash's pokémon?" Max asked excitedly, already dragging Professor Oak out the door.

"Hey, Gary, can we talk to you?" Misty asked the brunette, coming up to him.

Gary looked at Misty and May curiously. "Uh...sure."

"You know us, right? Friends of Ash?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. You're Misty, right? And I don't think I know you..."

"May," May introduced herself. "But introductions aren't important. We want to talk to you about Ash."

Gary raised an eyebrow, almost in a confused way. "The loser? What about him?"

Misty glared slightly. "I want to know everything you know about Ash's childhood before he set out on his journey."

"What, are you some private detective or something?"

"Spit it out, Gary. We're just worried about him."

"Oh, he's pulling the silent-treatment thing again, huh? Some things never change..." Gary laughed a little. He then rolled his eyes. "Oh, fine. Uhh...lemme think... I met loser when we were...I don't know, three or something. We were only friends because Gramps and Mrs. Ketchum were friends. It's just typical little kid action. Everything was fine until we turned seven. I realized that Ketchum was a loser. He pulled the silent treatment, and I finally learned that..." Gary's voice trailed off. "Uh, that something happened, and Ash just was acting weird. After that was over, we weren't friends anymore. We were always at each other's throats." Gary smirked. "There was this one time when we had an argument and I said something wrong. We got into a fight, and I won. Ha, that'd show him to mess with me. I beat the kid up so good... Sure, I got grounded in the end, but it's what I did that counts. After that, nothing much happened. We went on our journeys, blah, blah, blah, now he's back, he's acting weird again. The only answer is that someone close to him died again."

"You don't know?" Misty questioned, a little disappointed. Gary didn't give her much information that she didn't already know.

"Know about what?"

Misty shook her head and slowly explained about what happened to Pikachu. From the beginning. When she was finished, Gary looked amused.

"So that's what got him worked up. Gramps was wondering about that, I know."

"One last question, Gary. Who was that person who died when Ash was seven? What put him into silence?"

Gary snorted. "Ask him yourself. I'm sure he'll be just tickled to receive that question." He winked at them before leaving the room.

"Who could have died?" May asked, thinking aloud.

Misty shrugged. "No clue. I just get this feeling that I'm looking over something."
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Ash ate his lunch silently as Brock and Delia watched him carefully.
"How're you feeling, Ash?" Brock finally asked.

Ash looked up to him for a second. "I'm doing fine," he lied. He still had his mind on what Misty had said earlier, and he was going to play along with her little game. He would have lied anyway, but...

Brock didn't look like he believed it. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," Ash said, keeping his face emotionless. I'm getting really good at hiding that kind of stuff, he thought.

Delia smiled. "That's good then. We were beginning to get worried."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about me, Mom."