Professor Oak began his story.

"This man – Professor Vattha was his name. It was many, many years ago, at the Silph Lab on Cinnabar. It might be hard to tell by the look of it nowadays, but that place used to be one of the nation's foremost Pokémon research labs. As an eager young scientist, I had long wished to someday work there, and so, when fresh out of university I received their offer of a position, I wasted no time in accepting.

It was there that I met Professor Vattha for the first time. He had already been working at the lab for some years prior, though only a little bit older than myself. He was always a rather quiet and shy man, but I soon grew to be one of his few close friends. Every weekend we would enjoy going for long walks in the park, where we would share with each other the manifold joys and perils of our respective work; I would tell him all about my research into the evolution of Pokémon, how I dreamed of one day finding the common ancestor of all Pokémon alive today, and he would listen with fascination.

He used to be a Pokémon trainer when he was young, he told me. Like many of his peers, he went off on his Pokémon journey when he came of age, getting his first taste of adventure. He too saw with amazement the wonderful complexity of the world we live in, the delightful diversity of all the different Pokémon, the awesome task that lay before any who wished to comprehend it all.

However, the life of the journeyman was not for him, he said. It was in mathematics that he found his true passion. In this sphere, his was a mind of unparalleled genius. In what little of his work I could understand, I could sense the presence of a true master of the art.

In a way, it's very much like catching Pokémon. That's how he described it. The mathematician must assess the strengths and weaknesses of each line of attack, maneuver delicately through the thicket of truth and falsehood, until arriving by a path theretofore unknown to the elusive conjecture of one's desire. And yet, once proven, the once fearsome theorem rests faithfully by one's side, lending its aid to one's arsenal of mathematical techniques, in the quest towards ever greater knowledge.

Being myself a scientist of a more practical bent, I wasn't sure if I could ever fully understand this joy. Yet it made some amount of sense to me. I could see how the pursuit of mathematics might become an adventure of its own, to someone so disposed.

But there was one question that impelled him above all. It was the question that had driven him after mathematics as long as he could remember, and which continued to drive him, night after long night. Whereas I wished to unify the lineages of all the Pokémon, he had set his sights upon a much grander vision. On one night, in a moment of idealistic fervor, he looked up at the stars and confided in me what was his true dream: that mathematics would explain existence itself.

Such a lofty aspiration struck me as a little far-out-there, I admitted to him. Surely not everything could be reduced to mathematics alone? Surely there must be something greater than a mere mechanistic understanding of reality? And how could mathematics ever hope to explain why the universe should exist in the first place?

Yes, he confessed, he could not prove that such a thing could be done. If he could, then his quest would already be complete. But, he went on to explain, his confidence rested upon a supreme faith in the primacy of logic as the source of all true knowledge. Our feelings, our prejudices, our perception, everything else might be called into doubt – but logic alone stands as a firmament amidst the tempest of uncertainty in which we find ourselves. If through mathematics – the ultimate expression of logical certainty – we could bring the Universe itself to rest upon such a foundation, then would that not represent the greatest triumph of the human mind?

I could hardly think of what to say. For a moment I really thought I could finally see what he had been getting at this whole time. And yet, I could not escape the nagging sense that there was something unsettling about this single-minded obsession, something slightly inhuman about the world of rigid absolutes that he envisioned. But who was I to question a mind such as his? Perhaps it was merely my own irrationality speaking, the vagaries of my flawed human intellect that could not comprehend the perfection of mathematics.

This sense soon faded, and the years went by as we continued along with our respective research. But one crisp autumn night saw my worry resurface anew.

It was around midnight. His wife came knocking at my door, apologizing profusely for coming at so late an hour, but, she said, she hadn't seen her husband for over three days. It wasn't like him to disappear like this, she told me, and she asked if I had seen him. But when I thought about it, though usually we would encounter each other at least briefly during the course of a day, I had to say that I hadn't seen him either.

I'm terribly sorry for bothering you, then. Good night, Professor. She left before I could say any more. But she had planted in me the seed of an ever-growing concern, and I was now too restless to go back to bed. So I set out for the lab, thinking perhaps he might still be in his office in the mathematics department. I proceeded through the deserted, moonlit hallways towards his room and knocked on his door, but hearing no reply I let myself in. There he was, fast asleep, face planted on a scattered stack of papers beneath a still-shining lamp. I tiptoed around him, observing at once with marvel and with puzzlement the hoard of disassembled computers and electronic machines that surrounded him, the half-soldered chips and wires strewn all about the work-bench. I may not have been a mathematician, but something told me this wasn't mathematics.

I nudged him gently on the shoulder, and he awoke with a start. He muttered incoherently for several seconds before saying any understandable words. He must have lost track of time, he said. He apologized as he gathered together the papers on his desk into a folder and pushed me rather brusquely out the door, locking it behind us. I told him how worried his absence had left us, and that he should get home right away to his wife. He agreed, apologizing again, and hurried away towards the exit, leaving me standing somewhat bewildered outside the locked door.

It was another week or so before I saw him again. I was just leaving after a late night working at the lab, walking down the steps outside, when I collided with him as he was running up the other way. Oh, haven't seen you in a while, I remarked, helping him collect some of the books and folders he had dropped. What've you been up to recently?

Oh, nothing, just... busy with work, he replied.

Well what's this? I picked up one of the folders, whose label read 'PROJECT MU.' Is this what you're working on?

He snatched the folder out of my hands. I really shouldn't... I'd better get back to work, he answered.

I looked at him more closely, startled upon noticing for the first time the change in his appearance. His hair was long and disheveled, his normally primly-fashioned clothes were dirty and unkempt, and his dark, wrinkled eyes seemed to belong to a man far older than he. Is everything all right? I asked him.

After a moment's hesitation he sat himself down heavily onto the stairs, rubbing his brow and sighing deeply.

Whatever's the matter, you can tell me, I persisted. Please, I just want to help.

He looked back up at the night sky, stars shimmering through nascent tears, perhaps recalling that night years ago when beneath the same stars he had last confessed to me the secrets of his heart. He began in a soft, pained whisper, each word a struggle unto itself.

He had been seeing hallucinations – these visions, he called them. He strained to explain further. He said sometimes it looked like something was out of alignment; that he would see little spots of jaggedness or brokenness within his field of vision, but then he would blink and they would be gone. The words he finally used haunted me: he said it was as though he were trapped inside some vast theater, as if the world he saw were just an image, playing out on a screen that was crumbling apart piece by piece.

I was taken aback. This was more serious than anything I could have imagined. I asked him if he thought it was related to his work, but he didn't answer. I was going to take him to a doctor right away, I told him. Your wife misses you, I said. I miss you.

He looked at me for a long time. He was tired and weary, and longed to set down his heavy burden. But with a great force of will he stood up again. No, I can't, he said. You know how long I have sought the ultimate theorem of mathematics, the secret of existence itself. Now at long last that end is within sight. I have come too far to throw that away now.

I protested, making clear that I wasn't asking him to give up. I only wanted him to take some time off to rest and recover, to worry about himself for once.

I'm sorry, he replied. I'll have plenty of time to rest when I'm done. But if I don't go on now, it will be lost forever.

Before I could think of what to say, he was gone.

Plenty of time, indeed. The next morning I heard. He had been found in his lab, alive, but unconscious. They rushed him to the emergency room, but though they found no physical injury, they were nonetheless unable to rouse him from the coma into which he had fallen. Whatever this MU project was, they shut it down the very next day. He was soon transferred to long-term care in Viridian, and it was not much longer before our superiors closed the lab for good.

It was I that broke the news to his wife. She didn't accept it at first. She stayed with him every day for months, holding on to the hope that perhaps the familiarity of her voice, or the touch of her hand, might be enough to awaken him. But it was not. I could see her growing weaker day by day, trapped within the futile illusion that her dear husband might yet return.

I begged her to come back home, to resume her life once again. But she resisted. You want me to give up on him? she quivered as she asked. How can you know he'll never wake up?

You're right, I admitted. You could wait by his bedside an eternity, and still you would never know. Is that what your husband would have wanted?

She turned back to look at me, eyes shaking with fear and anger, perhaps because deep down she knew I spoke the truth. He would have had you smile again, I continued. To carry on to the future.

She looked down contemplatively and folded her hands over her stomach, a gesture whose significance I only later understood. Yes, you're right, she replied after some time. She stood up and shuffled methodically out the door, pausing one last time to deliver her final farewell.

Our separate lives slowly but surely settled back into normalcy after that. Time heals all wounds, I suppose. I eventually was able to move myself to the lab in Pallet Town and continue my Pokémon research here.

Nearly a decade passed, during which I had been perfectly content to put the whole unpleasant affair out of my mind. But one day I was suddenly forced to revisit it, when a letter arrived from the hospital in Viridian. It said nothing but that my presence was requested, and that it was about my old friend Vattha.

The doctors told me all the gory details as we walked down the hall towards the psychiatry ward. He had suddenly awakened, they said. Just like that. Stood up and left the room on his own two feet. He started running frantically around the hospital, saying that he needed to find a pen immediately. They quickly caught him and restrained him. He went on and on, protesting incoherently until they sedated him. We reached the door of his cell, through which I followed the doctors cautiously, afraid of what I might find.

I introduced myself. He continued mumbling to himself some strange jargon, rocking his body back and forth within his straitjacket. I called out to him again: It's me! Sammy! He stopped and looked up at us, staring wide-eyed at me for what must have been a full minute. Don't you remember me? I said.

He looked away and resumed his muttering, paying us no more attention. We thought he might recognize you of all people, one doctor said. But now we know he really is gone."

Misty and Brock paused for a long time, taking all of this in. Brock looked back at Ash's peacefully sleeping body. "Are you saying – if he ever wakes up, will he remember us?"

"I don't know," Professor Oak replied. "There is very little I do know. But if you ever want to find out, you must find this man."

"Then it's settled," he replied. "We're flying to Viridian City right away. Right, Misty?"

Misty examined the scanned photograph again, letting it fall limp in her hand. "Thank you, professor," she said.

"Yes, thank you, and goodbye," said Brock.

"Goodbye, and good luck." Oak signed off.

They returned to Ash's bedside and clasped his cold hands in theirs. "We'll save you, Ash," whispered Misty. "I promise."

They turned around to depart. "Take good care of him, Pikachu," said Brock.

"Pi-ka."