You're gone, the trees are so quiet

He was gone. Ash sat outside his lodgings watching the sun set down below the horizon. Just hours ago, he and Richie had fought their Indigo League battle. Ash had lost. He couldn't believe it; after everything he had been through, Ash had lost and placed in the Top Sixteen. But it wasn't winning. He sighed. I guess, I guess I'll try again next time… Ash thought to himself. Looking around the trees, he wondered where Misty, Brock, and Pikachu had gone. "Probably left me alone to wallow alone," He miserably told himself. "Either that, or they're seeing Richie off." Ash felt a sharp pang at his heart every time he thought of Richie. "It's not fair. Why did he leave?" Tears dropped from his brown eyes and he placed his head in his hands and cried.

When your hand was in my pocket
How they swayed from side to side

He thought back to all the good times he, Richie, Misty, and Brock had together, and felt the hole in his heart increase. Ash hated being left behind, hated losing someone who meant so much to him. How could things ever be the same again? They had battled Pokemon together, had become friends, had been each other's everything…

Now the meddling sky and my snowy eye
Sees a different night

And when he looked out onto that setting sun, with the dark night sky breaching the hazy yellow, Ash believed nothing would ever be the same. It was a different world with Richie gone.

The night I fell into the lion's jaws
To my regret and your delight

Ash's fingers gently brushed across his lips, and he closed his eyes, remembering that first kiss, his first kiss; the one that Richie had taken from him happily, though a flustered Ash had soon thought rash. "But Richie," Ash's head replayed that fateful conversation. "What if someone sees us? I'm, I'm not certain this is right." And Richie had just frowned at him, and then laughed. "Ash, if it's not right for you, then you don't have to do it again. Just keep the memory of it in your head. But know, I think it is right."

Those teeth themselves could not divine
Nor their pressure estimate
The haze I wish to never break
And to never contemplate

Richie couldn't tell Ash the complete meaning of his feelings, couldn't convince Ash otherwise of what they were, but his presence was enough to send Ash tumbling into confusion. He was much too young for something of this sort. But for some reason those feelings stumped Ash, and he didn't think much about why the kiss had happened. But he knew he would never let that memory go.

And his realization of the problem he had, and his feelings for Richie as he had won the battle, sending him further into the league, destroyed Ash. "I love Richie," he said out loud. And he knew that he couldn't bare the fact that Richie was off to new adventures without Ash, onto bigger and better things. Better people…

Momentum for the sake of momentum
Momentum for the sake of momentum
Of momentum

"But I've got to pick myself up!" Ash shouted at the top of his lungs, jumping up. "I need to keep going, and reach my goal of becoming a Pokemon Master!" He lowered his voice, whispering, "For Richie. Yeah, for Richie. We'll always be friends." The sun had totally set, leaving Ash incased in a dark miserable night, but as he opened his cabin door for some much needed sleep, and the light of the warm light bulb rushed towards him, he was happy with the way the match turned out, happy for the momentum that drove him to become the greatest Pokemon Master ever: Richie.

10/13/07