A Psychedelic Mess: Part 1
RisingDawn
Snommunism!
- Location
- Pakistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The world of Pokemon was as dangerous as it was unique. Ash Ketchum knew that better than most, but it didn't prevent him from setting out on his journey to be the very best. Will the desire to conquer the trainer world consume him or will he stay true to himself? Or will Ash go past the desire and become something great?
Hey guys. So, here's my first fanfic cowritten by Exodus, Nr 755 and Some sub main and Beta read by FearMeHorror and I. Enjoy and please leave a review about what you liked and didn't like about the chapter.
Warning: Violence, gore, and character death
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. Characters that appear in this work of fiction other than the OC's are owned by Nintendo
Emperors, beings from a bygone era that could control lands and any beings that walked upon them.
Beings that were so powerful that their mere presence caused even the mightiest creature to bow down before them. There was never a need for a show of power, for their position at the top was cemented.
Time passed, and things slowly but surely changed. The modern era flourished, and Pokemon became a normalcy. Before long, they were used in every aspect of one’s life. Emperors were no longer of any use and thus, forgotten.
In the days of the yore, the Emperors were the ones who protected the humans from the monsters that attacked them, and were it not for them humans would have never developed as far as they have today. They had nothing to stake against the feral creatures of the prehistoric lands, and depended on the protection of the Emperors.
Despite all that, you have forgotten them… It is as if they were never there to begin with. A race dedicated to you, now exiled and forgotten.
They will however return… and you better be prepared, or there will be consequences dire beyond compare.
Do put on a good show... for my sake if nothing else.
I do hope it will be most entertaining.
Ash Ketchum, a 17-year-old trainer from the town of Pallet, excitedly walked down a sunlit pathway that cut directly through the heart of Viridian Forest. The path was called the Rookie Path by experienced trainers, and was the most well-protected area in the Viridian sector of Kanto.
The last place he had travelled to that was 'wild' was Route 1. The Rookie Path turned out to be a much better route, featuring more ground to cover and a larger number of different kinds of Pokemon to catch.
Recently, the league had even implemented new measures for safety including checkpoints and rations. This had been applied to the Viridian especially, with the promise of making the start of a journey slightly more shielded.
Ash and his newly acquired starter, a pikachu, were on the Rookie Path in order to get to the Pewter Gym. Not only was this the shortest path, it was also the safest, and as such both partners were shrouded in a pleasant silence.
The young trainer had met his starter way back at the Academy of Pallet, when it was only a small little pichu. According to his mentor, the pokemon had been found during a rainy day by a couple of rangers. Ash never did figure out why the rangers had decided to give the mouse to the Academy, but they did. It might have had something to do with the fact that the Professor - Samuel Oak himself - was the founder and head of the Academy. It hadn’t been the easiest task for Ash to become friends with the small baby Pokemon. At first, the young pichu had been standoffish towards Ash, acting almost aggressively at times, but that slowly changed over time. It didn’t take long for Pichu to evolve into a pikachu, and they had been nigh inseparable ever since.
His reminiscing abruptly ended as a tail whacked him over his head. “Pika pika!”, the offender yelled, and Ash grinned sheepishly back at his partner. “Yeah, yeah I get it, I am just thinking of the forest you know, it looks so nice, beautiful even,” he told his friend, and the pikachu returned his grin. He pointed towards the unknown ahead and yelled “Pika!”, which told Ash he was just as excited.
They had been travelling for a couple of hours, during which Pikachu had spoken excitedly for the most part. What Pikachu wanted to say, he hadn’t been sure, but he felt good knowing that his partner was just as excited as he was. He knew that if they kept this pace up they would be out of the Viridian forest by the very next day, but there was still plenty to go, and the forest was known for slowing down travelers. He was thankful for the fact that there was a League sanctioned Pokemon guarding the path against any higher leveled pokemon, because otherwise, Ash and his partner surely would have had to make multiple trips to the Viridian City’s Pokemon Centre.
He still could not believe that he was going on a journey, it was almost as though it was a dream. If it weren't for the lush smell of plants or the fresh air overpowering his senses, he wouldn't have believed it. The feeling of the forest was immense, it was nothing like the small forested areas around Pallet Town.
The ambiance of the forest wasn't the only sounds that fell upon his ears. He could still faintly hear sounds from the city he had just left behind, a city fondly called Viridian City, but the farther he walked into the forest the fainter the sounds became.
While Viridian had a Gym, the leader was rumored to be undefeatable. Even the leader’s weakest Pokemon could take down Elite trainers, and for this reason, Ash had opted to travel to Pewter instead. It was only a few days of travel past Viridian at most, and it had a reputation of having a beginner-friendly Gym leader, which was perfect for someone like Ash who was just starting out. Besides, Pewter boasted some of the strongest rock types in Kanto and he was hoping to capture one for his journey. Almost any rock type native to Pewter would make a good addition to his team.
He was brought out of his musings by a passing butterfree. While it wasn’t a very rare Pokemon, it was the first of its kind he had seen since he entered the forest. He watched the butterfly-looking Pokemon fly around the small grove of trees and continued staring at it until it disappeared into the distance. He figured that if he hadn’t been as hopeless with directions as he was, he could have followed it and maybe even caught it. It was a bitter thought to consider. However, it only lasted for a moment as Ash was quickly back to being his chipper self once Pikachu hit him with his tail, not for the first time since they began walking.
By the time they had gotten farther into the path, the sounds of the city had disappeared completely, and both Ash and Pikachu were in awe of the forest they had found themselves in. It seemed so very alive, and the feeling of the forest brought back warm memories. A memory of him visiting Oak’s ranch when he was a little kid quickly flashed before his eyes. It had only lasted for a moment, but he was filled with nostalgia as he was reminded of a tiny poliwag. At the time, the Professor had been taking care of it, but it was a curious individual, and it had followed him around as he went around fawning over every pokemon he saw there. He momentarily wondered what the poliwag was doing now that Oak had released it.
While the nostalgic memories had been pleasant, they had reminded him of something. Something bad and horrifying. He had forgotten to call his mother. She was going to skin him alive with words, or worse, she may just send her pidgeotto to hunt him down.
He tried distracting himself using the beautiful greenery that surrounded him, but he winced at the sound of a chirruping pidgey, that suspiciously sounded like his mother’s pidgeotto. The thought of his mother’s avian made him subconsciously rub a spot on his head, as he remembered all of the times he had been pecked by the damn thing. The arm movement was sudden, and Pikachu made his annoyance known by nudging his ear and grunting.
“Pika pi pika pika,” Pikachu said as it shook his head in frustration. While Pikachu partially understood his partner's fear of the pidgeotto, he also knew Ash needed to grow a spine. The fact that he was also afraid of the avian wasn’t important.
“I’m sor-'' something rustled in the grass behind them, and both Ash and Pikachu froze. Ash slowly turned around-
-and got a fistful of seeds fired straight at his face. He stumbled, clutching his face as it flared with pain, and fell forward due to the sudden lack of support.
“Seedot!” The cry came from a minuscule pokemon which resembled an acorn. An acorn with two tiny legs and eyes, but an acorn nonetheless. Something Ash did notice during his observation was that the pokemon’s body was puffing a bit, a clear sign to experienced trainers that it was preparing to fire another bout of seeds. Unfortunately for Ash, he was not an experienced trainer, and he was swiftly bombarded with more seeds. After a few more seeds to the face, Ash finally had enough and he got up when the seedot was busy charging its attack.
Silently Ash pointed his finger at the seedot. Ash had practiced this cue for Quick Attack earlier with Pikachu, and he hoped that Pikachu would notice the command. Fortunately for him, Pikachu did notice it and the electric mouse launched itself at the seedot, causing the small pokemon to fly into a nearby tree, the momentum and the crash causing a lot of damage to the smaller pokemon. The crash which ensued caused the perching pidgeotto to fly off in alarm giving a little chirrup and Ash was once again reminded of his mother. His sweet, sweet mother. Shudder.
The seedot got back to its feet and started to glow a bright shade of red. Ash, in his adrenaline-filled daze, was too lost in his mind to recognize the attack.
Bide. It was an attack that allowed the user to hit back at their opponent with twice the amount of power it had been attacked with, but it was a tricky and fickle attack to execute, especially if the user had low damage enduring capacity.
While Ash stood there with a dazed look on his face, Pikachu was standing at a crossroad. The mouse could either send a miniscule electric attack to shock his trainer back to his senses and proceed to listen to what his trainer had to say to him, or he could take down the seedot on his own. A quick look at his trainer gave him all the information he needed to make a plan. As a new plan formed in Pikachu’s mind a sinister grin formed on the mouse’s face. This was going to be good.
Electricity slowly charged up in its cheek pouches and a slight crackling sound could be heard over the sounds of the forest. The sound increased in volume the more it was charged, until Pikachu finally released the attack at the seedot, a small charge running along the mouse's body and exiting out of his tail… directly at his trainer.
Both Ash and the seedot convulsed helplessly as the current passed through their body. For the young trainer, the sensation lasted for only a moment and quickly brought him back to reality, but for the seedot it lasted much longer.
The now focused teen looked around until his eyes landed on the seedot, and with a small flinch, he realized he was in a battle. He was an idiot; just because a pidgeotto chirped didn't mean he was going to get pecked… better to not continue that thought process.
Ash took stock of his surroundings and noticed his pikachu stare at the convulsing seedot… that poor thing, it must have been paralyzed. Does paralysis cause you to become red though? he thought to himself. That was when he realized that it was not paralysis that caused pokemon to become red, it was a move, and the only move that a seedot could possibly know to turn red would be…bide.
Although... isn't that pokemon unconscious? Ash thought to himself. Almost as if to prove that thought wrong, the acorn pokemon got up and then promptly ran into the bushes. He let out a small breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. But then he came to a realisation.
Brock uses rock type pokemon, right? And seedots are a grass type pokemon. It is a bit of a weak one, but that is fine, I can train it up… hopefully. I’ll have an advantage over Brock if it all works out.
With that thought, Ash chased after the tiny seed, that could possibly be the key to his victory at the Pewter gym.
"Pikachu use Quick Attack and follow that seedot before it gets away."
"Pika!"
After a few minutes of running Ash finally caught up to the seedot and Pikachu, the latter confusedly staring at the small acorn pokemon enjoying an Oran Berry, seemingly cured of its paralysis.
"Pikachu, use Quick Attack to get close and follow it up with a Thundershock!" Before he finished his command, Pikachu was off, running at breakneck speeds towards the seedot. There was however one thing they both had forgotten; the seedot still had Bide set up. The thought occurred to both of them too late, and as Pikachu’s cheeks sparked from the electricity being released at his opponent, a small pulse of energy detonated from the seedot. Both Pokemon fell back, loosing consciousness at the same time.
He ran up to Pikachu, clutching the tiny mouse in his hand with slight worry. With his free hand, he quickly reached for an empty pokeball, and threw it at the seedot. The pokeball struck the seedot and sucked it in a red light. Just like the other two pokemon he had caught earlier, it kept on shaking for a while, indicating that Seedot was struggling. Ash held his breath, hoping that the pokemon was weak enough for the pokeball to contain it. When the ball stopped shaking, Ash let out a sigh of relief, his partner hadn't fainted in vain.
Ash got to his knees and took off his bag, reaching into it for a Revive. He fed it to Pikachu, jerking his partner out of consciousness.
"Are you alright?" Ash asked with a gentle smile.
"Pika," the small Pokemon nodded weakly, trying for a smile, but instead giving something that looked to be a cross between a grimace and a smile.
“Not as easy as catching Spinarak and Hoothoot, huh?” Ash told his partner, as he touched the pokeballs on his waist, as if to check if they were still there.
“Pika pi,” his partner replied, thinking about the other pokemon they were travelling with. The entire friendship thing was a work in progress with them.
"Pika-cha~", Pikachu yawned, Ash looked at the pokemon for a bit. Maybe it was time for a rest. They had been walking continuously for a while so a little rest won't be that bad. Especially after that Quick Attack spam. Come to think of it, he himself was a bit tired, having limited travelling experience.
"This looks like a nice spot to rest, nice shade and," Ash yawned, “it is hidden, a very important thing you know”, Ash whispered as he cradled the tiny mouse against his chest and eventually nodded off, the evening sun rays peeking through the foliage.
For the next few hours both Ash and Pikachu were asleep. Pikachu was getting a well-deserved rest after his battle, and it only took so long before his trainer joined him. They reveled in their sleep, blissfully unaware of the world around them. This proved to be a fatal mistake.
Ash woke up with a start as he felt a sort of prickly feeling throughout his body. The source turned out to be the tiny, almost negligible, amounts of electricity his partner was pumping into him. Looking into the eyes of his partner, the fear was palpable.
Pikachu was waving his arms around frantically, pointing deeper into the forest, the same spot from where a buzzing sound seemed to be emanating from. A feeling of horror seized his heart and Ash jumped up in a standing position, all the while hoping against all hope it wasn’t them.
Ash slowly started to back away, realizing that maybe standing in the same spot might be a bad idea. His lessons from the various survival classes he took back at the academy kicked in. What was it that the old man used to say about a situation like this? It seemed Ash had forgotten, at least in his panicked state.
Oh Shit.
During the small window of time where he had spent thinking about what his old teacher had taught him, a creature had writhed out of the moonlit woods. It was a beedrill, and a dying one at that.
How? Who could have done such a thi- Oh no… is that a dent. What could have possibly caused a dent in that creature? This just seems like a bad situation and didn’t the old man say something about this situation… Oh man this was bad…
He could faintly recall one of the Professor's classes on the Viridian Forest. He had taught them that dying beedrills emitted a sort of pheromone that caused nearby beedrills to go into a rage. If a human or a pokemon or even an object were covered in this pheromone, any beedrill within a small range would attack them for thirty minutes or longer, the time depended on the strength of the beedrill and the potency of its venom.
With thoughts of a yellow striped body mutilated by three sharp stingers, Ash Ketchum ran away in the opposite direction, directly into the forest. He came to a startling realization; he was no longer on the moderately safe Rookie Path, and he sure as hell wasn’t running towards it. He had blindly chased the seedot without considering the consequences of leaving the path. Getting off that path was a stupid idea, he chided himself. As he ran, he felt Pikachu get out of his arms and jump onto his shoulder. He had never seen the tiny creature express such a look of terror, and it only made Ash pick up his pace even more.
It took Ash a few moments to notice the buzzing sound, he had thought it was his ears ringing from all the running, but unfortunately, it was not.
But we didn’t-
His thoughts were interrupted by a voice in his head.
“When a beedrill or any bug pokemon die, they emit a chemical all around the area. How it spreads is a question that has gone unanswered, but if you have it on you then your best chance is to jump into a river. If it is a beedrill that has emitted this pheromone on you, any nearby beedrills will get a significant boost in their strength, in fact, all of their stats double, this is an effect only seen in this species of pokemon and people have taken advan- Ash! Why are you sleeping in my class!”
After Ash had managed to convince the professor that he wasn’t half-asleep, the professor had gone on to explain about beedrill venom, something that would leave you writhing in pain for hours, if not days. The only cure for it was the sweet honey produced by the beedrills themselves - a sort of remedy that could even cure common cold - but the issue was getting to a beedrill hive in the first place. Even tamed beedrill were notorious for guarding their hive.
Ash suddenly stopped, glued to his spot by fear. There in front of him was a gigantic beedrill, and it was coming right at him, pointing its stinger at Ash’s chest. Its speed reminded Ash of those shows he had seen on the TV about missiles, it was just that fast.
The beedrill was stopped by a surprise attack by his partner. Pikachu quickly used Ash’s shoulders as a launchpad to throw itself at the beedrill. The pokemon used Quick Attack to speed up and intercepted the beedrill with a resounding thud. The beedrill crashed into the ground, and seizing the chance, Pikachu let loose a Thundershock which caused the beedrill to writhe in pain from its spot on the ground. Ash snapped out of his stupor and picked a pokeball out of his backpack, he was going to catch this beedri- More buzzing noises began closing in, and Ash ground his teeth as he put the pokeball back into his backpack, Pikachu jumping onto Ash’s shoulder as he turned tail and ran.
After running for a while, Ash - against all his survival instincts - turned back to see five beedrills pursuing him. He tried to focus back on his path, but the heavy running was starting to take its toll on him.
“PIKA-CHUUUUU!” Pikachu's signature battle cry came followed by another crackle of lightning. Pikachu was using his Thundershock to take down as many of the beedrill he could manage from his shoulder, but despite the tiny mouse’s best attempts to try to avoid hitting Ash, he was failing, and Ash grit his teeth with every shock that coursed through his body.
“PIKACHU! It's no use attacking. We’ll have to run”, Ash pleaded and Pikachu nodded grimly, determined to stay behind and protect Ash from the beedrill in case they caught up. After all, this human was the reason he was out of that stupid lab right now.
It had been five long hours since Bruce had set out from his log cabin, five long hours since he had felt warmth or safe. He knew he had to continue his hunt, if he didn’t… the outcome was too unbearable to think about. During these five hours he got lost, found his way back and managed to almost lose his secret weapon.
His monetary problems started the day he bought his secret weapon, a beast that was strong enough to defeat legendaries. Despite the problems that came with being broke, the pokemon had kept him happy. He had after that started working at the Celadon Bar, and things had gone well to the point he thought that his money issue was as good as solved… oh how naive he was.
The problem became apparent by his third week of work. He was clumsy, stupidly so since he managed to bring down entire shelves worth of alcohol in mere seconds. Truly a master of his art. He couldn’t ever remember being that clumsy, which was odd.
Soon he was fired and had neither a job nor money, what he did have though was this massive debt.
To combat his problems he battled rookie trainers from this town called Pallet and earned a lot of money from them, but that quickly stopped after the establishment of that accursed Academy, and he had to soon turn to battle centres. Since the nearest one was at Celadon he decided to go there.
At the battle centre his luck started to shine, he and his pokemon, Pinsir, had become very successful and earned a lot of money, although every time he brought out his secret weapon the opponent forfeited calling him insane. It must have been the beast’s hidden power. This good life lasted for almost five years.
The success had soon gotten to his head and he could not help but want more money. This continued until he began to lose. Everyone who saw his secret weapon refused to battle him, and even the referees forbade him from using it. All this led to his eventual fall from grace and he was soon left with nothing.
Every last one of his possessions was soon sold for the sake of food for himself and his pinsir, and this continued until he had nothing left to sell, he had at that point decided to sell his secret weapon, but then at that point his memory went blank. It picked up right at the point where he decided he won’t sell the cocooned beast… which was odd… but it wasn’t anything to worry about, the pokemon will pay for itself at some point.
In the former years of his life as a poor person, due to his proud nature, he could not bring himself to beg for food but it only took mere weeks before he began to wander around the city doing just that. It was during one of his excursions that he learned about a man who was looking for an elusive scyther. The man was supposedly willing to pay handsomely for the pokemon, and it heavily sparked Burce’s interest. This was his lucky break.
After spending days searching for the person who put out the request he had finally found him. His name was Giovanni and he was the original owner of the scyther. The kind man even paid him in advance.
The first thing he did with the money was to buy Samurai equipment to keep himself safe from the scyther. The fact that he liked to dress as a Samurai was definitely not the main reason.
Knowing what he did about scyther behavior, he searched almost every forest in the vicinity but the pokemon eluded him completely.
All this brings us back to the present. Bruce was still searching for the elusive scyther, and his ever-faithful pinsir was right behind him as they both made their way to the nearby river. The riverbank was a place that every pokemon in the vicinity made their way to at some point, and he knew that the Scyther must be there. It was only a matter of time before he caught it.
After spending minutes trekking through and admiring the forest, the samurai was finally at the river. It was a beautiful day and the sunlight glittered along the fresh stream. The conditions were perfect. To ensure that the scyther did come today, he put a bait by the riverside. Bruce figured that the slight breeze would help spread it throughout the forest.
He sat down in a comfortable sitting position, waiting for the creature to come. While waiting he spaced out, thinking about his strategy. At first, he was going to defeat the scyther using his pinsir, and if she fainted, he would use his secret weapon.
The Legend-Killer was special, he knew it. He was waiting for it to evolve so that it could become something that went beyond a mere Legend Killer; it would be a Pantheon Destroyer.
Its power would be so great that it would solo Lance’s entire team, and then some. Or at least that was what the seller told him.
The seller had also mentioned something about the beast forcing people to forfeit, which had worked so far, and then had gone on to tell him not to overuse it, or the hubris of victory would consume him completely. The mere thought of such a thing scared him.
He was jerked out of his thoughts by a steady humming noise that was emanating from behind him. He glanced sideways to see that Pinsir had frozen, looking at something behind them. He turned around slowly-
-only to see a scyther flying behind them. He nearly let out a shriek in excitement. Finally, after so long, the pokemon he had traveled all over Kanto to find was right behind him.
He had anticipated this moment for so long, upped the training of his pokemon to ridiculous levels, and had memorized every possible way for the scyther to attack so that they would have a counter to every possible situation.
“Pinsir, Seismic Toss”, the first command was issued from his mouth, almost on its own, the sudden noise causing the scyther to turn its head towards his direction.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Pinsir moved at an incredible speed towards Scyther, she grabbed her fellow bug type before leaping onto a treetop, from where she jumped and slammed Scyther into the ground with an incredible force.
The scyther was stunned, but it didn’t allow that fact to deter it. It charged right at Pinsir, a streak of white blinding light being the only way to track its movement. It crashed directly into Pinsir, the claws on its arms ripping into the creature, creating an unsightly gash, but it was fine. Powdered Oran Berries were more than enough to heal a gash like that, and luckily he had some on him.
While he was thinking of remedies to the wound, Scyther had used the momentum of the attack to propel backward, but Pinsir- in a brilliant showcase of her battle instincts - had grabbed Scyther and, through the use of Bind, had trapped it in a death grip. All that training had paid off.
No matter how much Scyther struggled, it couldn’t break free of Pinsir’s grip. Samurai smiled a bit, while the gash seemed serious they had succeeded.
This was the movement he was waiting for, his hands found their way into his pouch, he took out an empty Netball, and -taking a deep breath- threw it with full force at the scyther. The Netball traced an arc as it flew towards Scyther-
-only for it to hit a beedrill instead. The netball shook once, then twice after that with a soft blue light it stopped moving, this indicated the struggle taking place within, and the subsequent capture.
Everyone standing there, including Scyther, was left frozen to their spot in surprise. Pinsirwas so shocked that she had let Scyther go, who seized its chance at escaping this insanity and promptly fled into the darkness of the night,
Bruce was shocked, he looked at the empty spot where the scyther had been moments before. His one chance at the scyther, his one chance at clearing his debt and making a name for himself, all that and more was lost. All because of a stupid beedrill. He had even given away his entire team to Giovanni as insurance.
“Pinsir, return,” he did not want his pokemon to see him venting his frustration at a bunch of trees, and it would allow his pinsir to rest.
Once he had taken his anger out on defenseless foliage, he calmed down significantly. He thought rationally and asked himself what a beedrill was doing so far out. No beedrill ever wandered out of the forest alone.
This question was soon answered when someone came hurling through the bushes, faint buzzing noises following his thunderous arrival. An odd-looking boy who wore a league cap crashed right into Bruce, giving him no time to react or get out of the way. The boy and the pikachu he had seen on his shoulder fell onto him. He lost balance, and the trio promptly fell into the river.
All three of them immediately began to try and get out of the river. It was a battle that involved entangled limbs, a lot of drowning, and a wee bit of electrocution from the electric mouse.
The moment they were out of the water all three of them began to wheeze and choke in an attempt to get the water they had ingested out of their system.
“Sorry”, the guy said, looking very apologetic. He saw him look around frantically for a second, before taking a deep breath and jumping into the river yet again. He saw the boy along with the pikachu swim quickly, as if terribly frightened.
Bruce wondered what was that about until a buzzing sound began to assault his ears. He turned around, only to let out a shriek at the sight which greeted his eyes. That damned boy had brought an army of very pissed off looking beedrills.
He quickly dived back down into the river water, hoping that they would just fly past. He felt fear seize his heart, he had ever seen such a large swarm of bloody beedrills of all things flying together like that. The swarm was so massive that they looked as though they were one creature. He stayed underwater, hoping that he wouldn’t be spotted.
Bzzzzzt. The sound was constant, almost never-ending, this served to show the sheer size of the swarm that was following that boy. Even after a few minutes of being underwater, the buzzing noise did not go away. Bruce was now stuck in between a rock and a hard place; he could either drown to death, or risk going back to the surface and breathing, which could lead to him being picked out as a target by the beedrill.
A few more minutes passed and now Bruce only had one question, why were they following the boy in lar- wait. The boy must have Pheromone B on him. It was a pheromone emitted by dying beedrills, it could only be washed away by… water! No wonder the boy had jumped into the river. It wasn’t water itself that washed away the pheromone however, it was an odd plant that released some sort of weird anti-
Mid thought his air supply ran out and his mouth instinctively opened for air. Cold water filled his lungs and blood pounded behind his eyes. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to resurface, but he didn’t, the fear of the beedrills outweighed the fear of drowning.
Finally, he gave in to his instincts as the sensation of drowning increased and finally surfaced. As he did, the last few beedrills flew over him, but to his surprise, they ignored him, opting to just fly ahead with the rest of the swarm, and he knew this was not ordinary beedrill behavior. Then a thought struck him; what if the river water they were in was a pheromone amplifier? The crunch at his feet confirmed that thought… it was a river basculin. Their detritus amplified the effect of any and all pheromone that came into contact with them. Which basically meant that he was surrounded by hungry water types that just pooped out their earlier meal.
When I get out of here I am going to kill that bloody kid.
“I choose you, go Metapod,” the wannabe samurai sent out his trusty shiny and tied a rope around it. Just as the basculin moved to bite the samurai, he flung the shiny onto the other side, directly onto the branch of a tree and said, “Metapod, use harden!”
The trainer yelled this a few more times while enduring the chomps of the basculins. At some point they had begun cutting through his skin. Thankfully he wasn’t a water-dwelling pokemon, otherwise… he shuddered.
Once the legen- metapod’s shell was strong enough, he slowly but painfully pulled himself to the surface. As he did this a small headache made itself known to him, a pain, a feeling of being stuck to something and pulled… A headache that made itself known to him everytime he used Metapod.
Once he was safely on land he looked down at his legs, if they could even be called that, all he could see was shredded flesh that looked horrifying, and if it weren’t for his beloved metapod he didn’t even want to think about what would have happened.
He reached into his pouch and took out a healing salve, he knew he should have bought the full samurai set, but unfortunately, he needed it for the other supplies. He sighed as he rubbed the salve onto his feet, the chomps of the basculin that attempted to get to him serving as the background noise.
Ash gasped for breath every time his feet touched the floor. His lungs and heart were bursting, one taking in as much oxygen as it could and the other trying to break out of his chest. His limbs were in a bad shape due to the basculins that called the river their home. The pain was unbearable, but despite all that, he kept on running, a completely soaked Pikachu by his side.
The farther he ran, the more things he began to see. Some constructed by his fatigued mind and others real, but by this point, Ash could not tell the difference between them. The gigantic figure lurking at the edge of his vision was starting to look as real as the trees around him. Was there even trees around him?
For some reason, the roots of the trees extended when he got close to them. Sometimes he tripped over them and was sent sprawling onto the ground, but the buzzing sound kept him running. Other times he tried to sidestep them, but even then the roots did not give up, they tried to follow him.
At some point, he couldn’t tell the difference between when he was imagining the sounds of the beedrills buzzing and when it actually happened. The forest was starting to take its toll on the young trainer, but Ash knew he had no choice but to run. If he stopped, the toll of all the running would cause him to stop and he would be killed by the beedrills.
“Pika pikachu,” the mouse said before running into a particularly dark path. As much as he didn’t want to go there, he knew that his partner was up to something clever, and so Ash, despite the fear of death and the unknown in his heart, followed his best friend.
The path they were on was crooked, it forced them to take many turns at the oddest places, the entire path was built almost like a maze, there were paths that led to nowhere and even pokemon that tried to attack them. Thankfully Pikachu was strong enough to make quick work of them.
Turning another corner Ash ran faster, the buzzing had returned.
Against everything his body told him Ash turned behind him to see whether or not the Beedrills were there, only to slam directly into a thorny bush, some thorns on the bush pushed into his body, past the skin, and small streams of blood appeared on his arms and legs. He extracted himself from the bush to try and run back the way he came, only to come face to face with them.
Once again fear consumed him, but this time it took over both his mind and body and he lurched forward, the exhaustion finally setting in.
He was covered entirely in bloody gashes, to the point where even his mouth tasted coppery due to the amount of blood it contained. Ash spat out all that blood that had accumulated in his mouth, but it was no use, the cut was still generating blood, it seemed as though the taste would never go away.
Ash opened his eyes, the beedrills surrounded him completely, but for some reason, some of them looked like they were differently colored, whispers echoed in his ears. The blood loss was starting to make him feel lightheaded.
He bit his tongue to focus, but due to the pain he was already in he found that it was a futile effort.
“Pi..ka..ch..u….. Bu...ddy…. Run,” Ash wheezed out and to his surprise, Pikachu ran away.
Is this how I am fated to die? Surrounded by pokemon who want to kill me… I wish this wasn't the end... He looked around in hopes of finding some secret escape route, but unfortunately, he didn’t find any. This is it. The end of a very short life and a journey, hopefully, Pikachu survives and finds a better trainer… Someone who can take care of him… Dammit! I should have listened to her… I should have listened to my mom… so… sorry... Ash finally resigned himself to his fate.
His life would be like all the others; meaningless and ordinary. He would die without making his mark on the world, forgotten with time.
Sure, he would be mourned by his mother and the old professor, but besides them, who would care? He would be just one person out of millions of others like him, with nothing distinguishing him from the rest. Just another cog in the mac-
“Pika pika,” his dark thoughts were interrupted by a frantic sounding Pikachu who appeared out of the darkness wielding a stick and some… berries?
Whenever one of the beedrills got close to Ash, the pokemon poked them back with the stick, all the while eating the berry.
Once it was done eating the berry the mouse dropped the stick and got into a stance, his cheeks were emitting small amounts of sparks, “Pi pi pika pikachu,” it chanted as it rubbed its cheeks, for what reason Ash did not know.
Then it happened. Ash’s world erupted in the most brilliant shade of yellow and white he had ever seen. The beauty of the blinding light moved him to touch it, and suddenly pain flared through his nerves. He could not remove his hands from the light even if he tried. Panic shot through his body, and pain rocked his world.
As quickly as it began the entire spectacle was over, the sudden darkness that rushed into his eyes almost blinding him.
The pain he felt had been so great even the mere thought of it made him wince. Even now he felt every part of his body flare with pain. Ash tried to open his eyes to the best of his ability and was greeted by the sight of Pikachu who was carrying an armful of oran berries.
“Pika pi,” the small mouse smiled and fed him one of the oran berries he had, and Ash could immediately fel his nerves stitching themselves back together, he even felt he could breathe better like some sort of hidden block had been removed from his lungs.
Ash slowly tried to stand up, and while it felt painful, it was nothing compared to the pain he had been in before.
Bzzt! The sounds were back, but didn’t the bright light take out all the beedrills? Maybe some had survived, Ash turned to look at the spot from where he had heard the buzzing noise, to see… a massacre. There was no other way to describe it. While there were still many beedrills left, their numbers had been halved, more than halved even seeing the amount lying dead on the floor.
The surviving beedrills looked almost shocked, he wanted to laugh at them but they did not look very pleased with the outcome. If anything they seemed downright pissed, but for some reason, they did not move.
The reason quickly became apparent when a buzzing sound emanated from behind him. Ash quickly swiveled around looking behind him to see a beedrill moving at an incredible speed towards him. It was fast, but Pikachu was faster, using a combination of Quick Attack and Agility to get in range with the beedrill. Once he was close enough, Pikachu let loose a combination of Thunderwave and Tackle throwing it back while causing paralysis, before charging up and releasing a Thundershock which caused the beedrill to drop down unconscious.
The other beedrills backed away at this display of power, but Ash knew it wouldn’t last. Soon they would all attack at once, and when that happened, Pikachu would surely be overpowered. There might not have been as many as before, but there were enough of them to overwhelm Pikachu and him. All of a sudden there was a crash.
He looked around, trying to see what happened, where the crash had come from. It seemed even the beedrills were curious about the crash as even they were looking around. Seizing the chance Pikachu and Ash ran right through the gap between the beedrill formation, any that were in their way were promptly electrocuted.
It took a while but they managed to escape the beedrills, and that was when he saw the foliage next to them shake. Out of it emerged a figure clad in a gaudy Samurai Armor. The last time he had seen one of these was in one of his mother’s TV programmes.
The person, a boy who looked to be a bit older than him, was frantically gesturing towards him and Ash recognized him as the guy he had run into earlier.
Ash ran towards him, the bugs may have been farther back, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they found him again, particularly since they were once again covered in the beedrill pheromone. The boy got back into the foliage and covered it up while looking him in the eye. Clearly, he meant Ash should follow him.
Ash took off towards the direction he assumed the Samurai was in with Pikachu bringing up the rear, ready to battle any beedrill that entered in after them. As he ran, he could hear the crack of thunder and thudding sounds signaling that some of the beedrills had gotten through the gaps, and that Pikachu’s attacks were really effective in deterring them.
Soon the Samurai was in sight, he was waiting for them at the point where the paths diverged “This way”, the Samurai told him, as he ran in said direction, leaving Ash wondering, how in the name of Distortion did that Samurai run so fast with so much equipment?
Ash had no time to wonder as the damned Samurai ran almost as though the devil himself were on his heels. If it weren’t for the low buzzing sounds behind them Ash would have asked him to slow down.
Ash turned around a corner and suddenly they were out of the bush path and in a clearing. He quickly spotted an eyesore of a log cabin. “Hurry! Get in!” Samurai shouted, and Ash did not argue. All three of them quickly got into the cabin, with the Samurai locking the door behind them. The cabin was shrouded in darkness, and the samurai walked into it.
He returned with a small candle and he placed it on a table by a shelf. The room that was revealed by the room looked shabby almost lazily put together.
“The beedrills won’t be able to get in now, but just in case,” the Samurai threw a bottle that was sitting on his shelf at him, “before you ask, no that is not poison or one of those sleeping potions, it’s bottled beedrill honey.”
“Didn’t know they still sold these”, Ash said looking at the Samurai suspiciously as he sat down by the window.
“Relax,” the samurai said holding his hands out, “it’s from a personal stash, you can never know what happens in this forest, and so you can never be prepared enough for a trip here", well that was true, he had almost died due to not preparing. What was he even thinking getting off of the path?
“The name’s Bruce”, the Samurai said his name with a sort of pride flair to it as he leaned against the wall in what was supposed to be a cool pose, but unfortunately he failed miserably.
“Ash Ketchum'', Ash introduced himself rather dully after he gulped down the bottle of honey. His mind kept flashing back to the beedrills, their beady eyes filled with loathing, an emotion directed towards him. A part of him still liked the pokemon and that terrified him, would something like this happen again, would he almost die to another beedrill attack, would he-
"What are you thinking about?", Bruce cut through his dark thoughts.
"Oh nothing much…. Why do you have a hut in the Viridian forest anyway? Do you live here?”, Ash asked half-heartedly he just wanted all this over with. Maybe some sleep. That sounded good right about now.
“It’s not a hut!”, the Samurai yelled.
“Then?”
“It’s a shack.”
“Sure, whatever you say.”
"IT IS A SHACK YOU BRAT!"
"... if I'm a brat then you are a guy who argues with brats… think on that for a bit."
The more they talked the more Ash found pleasure in annoying the Samurai, the guy had amazing reactions, something that reminded him of himself. Anything was better than thinking about the beedrills at this point.
“What about you? What are you doing in these parts of the Viridian forest?” Bruce asked Ash, once he had calmed down.
“I was on my way to the Pewter Gym, got sidetracked and lost”, Ash replied.
“Think you can win the badge?”, Bruce taunted, “gym leaders are supposed to be pretty strong. You sure you can take one on?”
“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here”, Ash replied curtly.
The samurai was unfazed, with a smirk he asked, “what do you say we battle to see if you can back your words up?”
While he had grown up around Gary, who was a hundred times worse than this guy,Ash couldn’t help but feel insulted. Either way battling the samurai would be a good way to test where he stood.
‘Besides, the gym leader would be a lot harder to battle than this guy who can’t even build a house,’ he thought to himself amusedly.
“Let's do it then”, Ash said. He got up and started to open the door but the samurai ran up to him and pulled him back, he even abandoned his cool pose and everything.
“Idiot! First, wait for the beedrills to leave,” Bruce said looking panicky and Ash nodded sheepishly making his way back to the chair by the window sill, waiting for the danger to pass.
It had been three hours, three long and gruesome hours filled with boring and pointless chatter. Eventually, the beedrills had left, with no trace of them ever being there. Both Ash and Samurai headed out slowly, the moment they got outside they hissed covering their eyes, shielding it from the morning sun. It seems like they had managed to talk through the night.
Bruce recovered faster than Ash and looked around to see if the area was safe, he was shortly joined by Ash who was a bit worried about beedrills appearing out of nowhere.
Once they had made sure that they were indeed safe they both stood at the opposing sides of the samurai’s homemade battlefield. Ash was excited but at the same time, he was nervous, the prospect of a battle washing away his earlier fears.
This was his first trainer battle ever since he had started his journey, this battle was bound to be more interesting than those in the wild. He straightened up, hoping he didn’t look as nervous as he felt. After all, if the other trainer knew that you were nervous, half the battle was lost.
“Let's start this battle, 1v1?” Bruce asked.
Ash thought for a moment, before shaking his head, “no, 2v2”, he replied.
“Okay then, I’ll send out my pokemon first,” Bruce said before detaching a pokeball from his belt and throwing it, out of which appeared a Metapod.
Ash did a double-take upon seeing it. The metapod was shiny, a rare variant of the pokemon which had a different color, it was orange.
All the same, he wondered why the guy sent a metapod out, all cocoon pokemon were notoriously weak, due to their fragile outer body. ‘Focus’, he told himself, shaking his head. Despite wanting to not battle the metapod Ash thought that maybe the samurai knew what he was doing, the guy did look experienced after all.
‘I can’t use Hoothoot or Seedot. I just caught them and haven’t even let them out of their pokeballs. Since I want to save Pikachu for later, guess that leaves only-’
He detached a pokeball from his belt and threw it into the air. A bright blue light came out of it and condensed before forming a small green bug, with a small stinger on its head. It clicked its jaws before coming to a stop, staring at its opponent. It was a spinarak, pre-evolution of one of the most dangerous bugs in the world, Ariados.
“Take the first move”, Bruce offered pompously, Ash sweatdropped, that poor metapod.
“Spinarak, Poison Sting”, Spinarak leaped into the air and landed, immediately stabbing the metapod with its stinger. Although the Metapod’s tough shell would prevent the stinger from penetrating too deep, the stinger still managed to poison the metapod.
Bruce frowned at Metapod, being poisoned had put him in the spot, but thankfully he had taught the pokemon to harden without being given the command. “Metapod crush the bug with your Tackle”, the samurai said not realising that Metapod itself is a bug.
Ash did another double-take upon hearing that, “are you crazy? You’re seriously going to endanger your own pokemon for one measly battle?” He yelled.
It was a well-known fact that making metapod or any other cocoon pokemon use tackle could cause their cocoon to break open, causing them to evolve prematurely, which could be very harmful as they wouldn’t have developed properly at that point.
Metapod, for example, would have deformed wings as a butterfree if they evolved prematurely.
“Beware! This isn’t a regular metapod like you think it is. This is the Legend Killer, the metapod that will destroy the league as you know it when it evolves.”
Ash cringed for Bruce. Just how dumb was this guy?
“What the- were you dropped on your head as a baby? What the hell are you smoking, you idiot?” Ash sputtered.
“Focus on the battle and prepared to be bedazzled”, Bruce said, gesturing at the pokemon.
Ash returned his gaze to the battle, seeing that while they were arguing, the metapod had moved barely 5 inches and wasn’t even close to Spinarak. He sighed, “Spinarak put that poor thing out of its misery. Infestation”, Spinarak let out a screeching noise. From around them, answers came in the form of screeches.
Soon the whole area was surrounded by spinaraks of many shapes and sizes. They all crawled towards the battlefield, glaring at the metapod with murderous intent. Ash saw the samurai panicking, as various Spinarak crawled over Metapod and viciously attacked it.
Ash's spinarak plunged its stinger directly into Metapod’s cocoon causing it to squeal, while another bit another part of the cocoon, breaking a part of the cocoon.
“Metapod!”, Bruce yelled, worried. He pulled out Metapod's pokeball, but instead of instantly withdrawing the pokemon he, oddly enough, walked upto the pokemon. The spinaraks at first made moves to attack but Ash’s spinarak made some clicking sounds causing them to stay there, observing the events that unfolded in front of them.
The samurai once he reached the metapod, scooped it into his arms, seemingly cradling it like a baby, “I forfeit Metapod '', he said looking grim. Ash smiled. Round one to him.
Metapod was retrieved after this strange spectacle causing the spinaraks to return to wherever they came from leaving Ash's spinarak alone on the field, waiting for its next opponent.
The samurai pulled out another pokeball while gritting his teeth and in a flash of blue light, a pinsir came out, battle-ready.
Pinsirs were a rare species of pokemon and this specimen was especially magnificent due to the sharpness of its horns and the thorns-like structures protruding out of it.
“Pinsir, use Swords Dance and follow it up with Strength”, the command came from Samurai, and the pinsir went through a series of moments before jumping towards the small bug.
“Dodge and use Poison sting”, came Ash’s command.
After the command Ash quickly turned to look at the pinsir, he did not want to miss even a moment of this battle. The pokemon was surrounded by a blue glow, signaling the rise in its attack power and it moved with speed so incredible that it was horrifying to even think that this was this pokemon’s natural speed. Spinarak sidestepped the attack and tried to plunge its stinger into Pinsir, but Pinsir immediately took to the air and came crashing down onto Spinarak with a full force Strength, crushing Spinarak and knocking it out in a single blow.
Ash stood there in absolute shock. The attack’s power was incredible, and it had been held longer than a minute, which was the charge limit for most moves. And even through all that, it had managed to outpace a spinarak - a creature smaller than itself - which was something that should have been faster than the much larger and bulkier Pinsir.
The most awe inspiring factor of all this was the attack's strength. The attack was so strong it had knocked out Spinarak in a single blow. He shook his head in dismay as his mind thought up strategies at a quick pace. Maybe this won't be as easy as he had thought it to be.
Pinsir was fast, and it hit hard, especially with the Swords Dance boost. He only had one option. “Mind beating that pinsir, buddy?”, Ash asked his first friend. Pikachu jumped off his shoulder, landing on his feet, before involuntarily tensing up with a ferocious warcry of “Pika!”
“Pikachu keep your distance from Pinsir and use Charge”, Ash commanded smoothly and Pikachu stood there, looking warily at Pinsir. Small sparks jumped across his cheeks, indicating the build up of his electricity reserves.
“This is for Metapod! Pinsir use Bug Bite and throw that Pikachu onto the tree”, Samurai commanded vengefully.
“Dodge it”, Ash countered. Hearing this, Pikachu did a pirouette, and the intended attack missed him by almost an inch. Pikachu reoriented himself using a combination of Agility and Quick Attack, and using the momentum from those moves, Pikachu ran to the other end of the field, looking almost like a yellow blur.
“Thunderwave”, Ash’s next command came, and Pikachu released a wave of lightning that hit Pinsir. The sheer strength of the attack pushed the pokemon back and paralysed it.
“Pinsir, brave through it and use Swords Dance!”, the samurai yelled.
“Pikachu, Nuzzle!”
Using the boost provided by the two Agility and coupled with Quick Attack, Pikachu launched himself at Pinsir. To the two spectators, he was nothing but a blur at this point. Pinsir tried to attack the mouse, but he dodged it and rubbed his cheeks against the pinsir, the electrical charge stored in his cheeks damaging the pinsir.
The samurai gritted his teeth and stared at Ash with contempt in his eyes.
“Strength”, Pinsir again leapt towards Pikachu, trying to use the same maneuver as before but then the paralysis effect kicked in, and Pinsir was down. Pikachu used Quick attack to jump in an arc above Pinsir and used it again to shift his momentum to launch himself right at the pokemon. The pinsir’s eyes widened.
“Pinsir, move out of the way,” but it was too late, the pokemon was already hit, but unfortunately for Ash, Pinsir did not faint.
“Pinsir, use Guillotine,” the samurai said darkly. Pinsir wobbled towards Pikachu, and Ash’s eyes widened. The action looked terrifying to him. “Pikachu, get out of there!!!!” he screamed, and Pikachu jumped, but unfortunately it had jumped above Pinsir. Ash had to watch as Pikachu jumped over Pinsir, his perception of time slowing down as he watched the pinsir jump and pluck Pikachu out of the air with its powerful pincers’ which were glowing an ominous white, an explosion followed causing Ash’s ears to ring and the battlefield to fill up with smoke and dust.
Ash anxiously waited for the smoke to clear to see what had happened. The moment the smoke cleared Ash's eyes darted around looking around for Pikachu. He spotted him lying unconscious in the middle of the field, causing Ash to run over to him. He took a revive out of his bag and fed it to Pikachu as he scooped the tiny creature up into his arms. The reaction was immediate, all the cuts on him healed, but Pikachu still did not get up, the mental toll was still too great.
“Well well well, you clearly aren’t as strong as you thought you were”, Samurai started smugly, “but that said it was a close one,” he admitted grudgingly.
“Thanks a lot, but… I don’t need your pity Bruce”, Ash said as he handed over a few pokedollars to the samurai. The reason for this being, the set of reforms that the league had introduced to attract people towards the profession called pokemon training. One of them, as anyone can probably guess, was a monetary prize for winning a battle.
“Uh Uh. Give me your pokemon as well,” the samurai said in a tone that sounded uncaring, but it had a slightly worried undertone to it, he tried to play it off by counting the money in his hands.
“Are you crazy? No!”, Ash said firmly, his expression looking a bit lost and worried.
“Hand them over or I’ll be forced to persuade you into doing it”, the samurai - no… samurais were honorable, this person was not - Bruce said with a malicious smile adorning his face.
Ash slowly started to back away. He was now aware of the fact he was dealing with someone crazy, someone who was willing to do anything just to get what he wanted. Why did Bruce save him though? None of this made any sense. Why was his journey going down like this?
“Hey come here. Where are you going?” Bruce said with the malicious smirk turning into a sadistic smile, he looked like he was enjoying himself. Ash turned around and quickly broke into a sprint.
“Pinsir return,” the bug would be a liability due to its paralysis in this chase, “Beedrill come on out I need your help.”
Quickly filling in the pokemon on what was happening, the twisted samurai began chasing after the running trainer.
Ash Ketchum was tired of running. Ever since this journey had begun, he had constantly needed to run. First from those thrice damned beedrills, and now from a maniac. This was going to be a pain tomorrow, that is if he lived to see tomorrow, the chances of which were getting slimmer by the moment.
He took a few turns, hoping that he could lose his pursuer, but he had no such luck. Bruce kept on coming after him, there was a beedrill with him too. Hopefully he wouldn’t have a fear of bug pokemon by the end of this adventure. Pikachu being in his arms didn’t help his speed at all, and he knew he needed a plan. Something, anything to escape from this situation… but every thought, every idea led him to a dead end… he had no hope, unless...
He suddenly took a sharp left turn and ran straight almost like an arrow. From his peripheral vision he could see that Bruce was surprised, he got a feeling of satisfaction from that.
Just a few hundred meters more, he thought to himself, spurring himself to run forward. He needed speed, more speed and Ash forced himself to run forward. Every joint in his body, every limb, everything felt weak, but he forced himself to move forward.
Due to the speed he was running at he did not see the tree branch that was in front of him, and it caused him to trip and stumble through thorny bushes, until he finally landed in a small clearing with the air knocked out of him. The force at which he fell caused him to drop the pikachu in his arms, and the pokemon rolled a bit farther away from him.
Bruce by this point had caught up to and had unsheathed a sword he kept attached to his hip and pointed it at Ash’s throat, he had a crazed look in his eyes. “Give me your pokemon or else …”, he trailed off threateningly. Next to him, the beedrill buzzed menacingly as its red eyes glowed menacingly, but Ash wasn’t scared. He could feel a curious prod against his mind as something searched for something. Once it had found it, the feeling receded and Ash was alone once more. He panicked, was his plan a failure? He hoped not.
The panic and fear of failure only lasted for a moment as all of a sudden a force, nay energy, threw both Bruce and his beedrill into a tree. It looked quite painful, and Ash smiled to himself as he looked to his side. There, some 50 meters or so away, stood a pink dopey looking pokemon whose tail was covered by a large grey spikey shell-like creature that had two eyes near the base. It was a slowbro, and a league sanctioned one at that.
A league sanctioned pokemon was a pokemon trained by the league and placed on trainer routes to ensure the safety of trainers. Every trainer was taught the basic locations of these pokemon so that they may run to them in case of an emergency.
They were very powerful, but apparently, Bruce hadn’t gotten that memo since he was now trying to get his beedrill to attack it.
“Beedrill, Twin Needle”, he screamed as Beedrill sharpened its spikes against each other as it went for the attack, but it was easily forced back. Slowbro turned to Ash and moved towards him with a dopey smile on his face, deflecting every attack that Beedrill sent his way, he could hear the rising panic in Bruce’s voice as the pokemon got closer to Ash.
The slowbro stopped its movement next to him, “Slow,” it began and the world around him was consumed in yellow and pinkish-purple lights that seemed to be playing with each other. All of a sudden the purple colored light rushed at Ash and entered him “Bro!”. With that Ash, Pikachu and Slowbro were in front of the Viridian pokemon centre.
However Ash was too lightheaded to notice any of that as he began to retch, his head was pounding. The pain, the pain was unbearable.
All of sudden it disappeared, and Ash felt like something was snatched away from him, but at the same time something was given to him as well.
Odd, must have been a side effect of the teleportation- speaking of which Ash was now aware of the fact that the slowbro that dropped him here had gone away. He didn't even get to say a proper thank you to it. Ah well, he could say it the next time he saw the dopey beast.
Only one thought remained in his mind after this event. The lights he had seen helped him make up his mind. He needed to get stronger, stronger than that slowbro at some point.
For now all he needed to do was defeat Bruce, for that he knew he would have to step up his training with his pokemon.
After all that is done he will find Bruce, and this time he will win and he will show Bruce the pain of taking away someone’s pokemon... even if only for a brief moment. But for now, he and his pokemon needed rest.
As Ash walked into the pokemon centre a thought snapped into his mind, this rage it was his… wasn't it?
Hey guys. So, here's my first fanfic cowritten by Exodus, Nr 755 and Some sub main and Beta read by FearMeHorror and I. Enjoy and please leave a review about what you liked and didn't like about the chapter.
Warning: Violence, gore, and character death
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. Characters that appear in this work of fiction other than the OC's are owned by Nintendo
Emperors, beings from a bygone era that could control lands and any beings that walked upon them.
Beings that were so powerful that their mere presence caused even the mightiest creature to bow down before them. There was never a need for a show of power, for their position at the top was cemented.
Time passed, and things slowly but surely changed. The modern era flourished, and Pokemon became a normalcy. Before long, they were used in every aspect of one’s life. Emperors were no longer of any use and thus, forgotten.
In the days of the yore, the Emperors were the ones who protected the humans from the monsters that attacked them, and were it not for them humans would have never developed as far as they have today. They had nothing to stake against the feral creatures of the prehistoric lands, and depended on the protection of the Emperors.
Despite all that, you have forgotten them… It is as if they were never there to begin with. A race dedicated to you, now exiled and forgotten.
They will however return… and you better be prepared, or there will be consequences dire beyond compare.
Do put on a good show... for my sake if nothing else.
I do hope it will be most entertaining.
Ash Ketchum, a 17-year-old trainer from the town of Pallet, excitedly walked down a sunlit pathway that cut directly through the heart of Viridian Forest. The path was called the Rookie Path by experienced trainers, and was the most well-protected area in the Viridian sector of Kanto.
The last place he had travelled to that was 'wild' was Route 1. The Rookie Path turned out to be a much better route, featuring more ground to cover and a larger number of different kinds of Pokemon to catch.
Recently, the league had even implemented new measures for safety including checkpoints and rations. This had been applied to the Viridian especially, with the promise of making the start of a journey slightly more shielded.
Ash and his newly acquired starter, a pikachu, were on the Rookie Path in order to get to the Pewter Gym. Not only was this the shortest path, it was also the safest, and as such both partners were shrouded in a pleasant silence.
The young trainer had met his starter way back at the Academy of Pallet, when it was only a small little pichu. According to his mentor, the pokemon had been found during a rainy day by a couple of rangers. Ash never did figure out why the rangers had decided to give the mouse to the Academy, but they did. It might have had something to do with the fact that the Professor - Samuel Oak himself - was the founder and head of the Academy. It hadn’t been the easiest task for Ash to become friends with the small baby Pokemon. At first, the young pichu had been standoffish towards Ash, acting almost aggressively at times, but that slowly changed over time. It didn’t take long for Pichu to evolve into a pikachu, and they had been nigh inseparable ever since.
His reminiscing abruptly ended as a tail whacked him over his head. “Pika pika!”, the offender yelled, and Ash grinned sheepishly back at his partner. “Yeah, yeah I get it, I am just thinking of the forest you know, it looks so nice, beautiful even,” he told his friend, and the pikachu returned his grin. He pointed towards the unknown ahead and yelled “Pika!”, which told Ash he was just as excited.
They had been travelling for a couple of hours, during which Pikachu had spoken excitedly for the most part. What Pikachu wanted to say, he hadn’t been sure, but he felt good knowing that his partner was just as excited as he was. He knew that if they kept this pace up they would be out of the Viridian forest by the very next day, but there was still plenty to go, and the forest was known for slowing down travelers. He was thankful for the fact that there was a League sanctioned Pokemon guarding the path against any higher leveled pokemon, because otherwise, Ash and his partner surely would have had to make multiple trips to the Viridian City’s Pokemon Centre.
He still could not believe that he was going on a journey, it was almost as though it was a dream. If it weren't for the lush smell of plants or the fresh air overpowering his senses, he wouldn't have believed it. The feeling of the forest was immense, it was nothing like the small forested areas around Pallet Town.
The ambiance of the forest wasn't the only sounds that fell upon his ears. He could still faintly hear sounds from the city he had just left behind, a city fondly called Viridian City, but the farther he walked into the forest the fainter the sounds became.
While Viridian had a Gym, the leader was rumored to be undefeatable. Even the leader’s weakest Pokemon could take down Elite trainers, and for this reason, Ash had opted to travel to Pewter instead. It was only a few days of travel past Viridian at most, and it had a reputation of having a beginner-friendly Gym leader, which was perfect for someone like Ash who was just starting out. Besides, Pewter boasted some of the strongest rock types in Kanto and he was hoping to capture one for his journey. Almost any rock type native to Pewter would make a good addition to his team.
He was brought out of his musings by a passing butterfree. While it wasn’t a very rare Pokemon, it was the first of its kind he had seen since he entered the forest. He watched the butterfly-looking Pokemon fly around the small grove of trees and continued staring at it until it disappeared into the distance. He figured that if he hadn’t been as hopeless with directions as he was, he could have followed it and maybe even caught it. It was a bitter thought to consider. However, it only lasted for a moment as Ash was quickly back to being his chipper self once Pikachu hit him with his tail, not for the first time since they began walking.
By the time they had gotten farther into the path, the sounds of the city had disappeared completely, and both Ash and Pikachu were in awe of the forest they had found themselves in. It seemed so very alive, and the feeling of the forest brought back warm memories. A memory of him visiting Oak’s ranch when he was a little kid quickly flashed before his eyes. It had only lasted for a moment, but he was filled with nostalgia as he was reminded of a tiny poliwag. At the time, the Professor had been taking care of it, but it was a curious individual, and it had followed him around as he went around fawning over every pokemon he saw there. He momentarily wondered what the poliwag was doing now that Oak had released it.
While the nostalgic memories had been pleasant, they had reminded him of something. Something bad and horrifying. He had forgotten to call his mother. She was going to skin him alive with words, or worse, she may just send her pidgeotto to hunt him down.
He tried distracting himself using the beautiful greenery that surrounded him, but he winced at the sound of a chirruping pidgey, that suspiciously sounded like his mother’s pidgeotto. The thought of his mother’s avian made him subconsciously rub a spot on his head, as he remembered all of the times he had been pecked by the damn thing. The arm movement was sudden, and Pikachu made his annoyance known by nudging his ear and grunting.
“Pika pi pika pika,” Pikachu said as it shook his head in frustration. While Pikachu partially understood his partner's fear of the pidgeotto, he also knew Ash needed to grow a spine. The fact that he was also afraid of the avian wasn’t important.
“I’m sor-'' something rustled in the grass behind them, and both Ash and Pikachu froze. Ash slowly turned around-
-and got a fistful of seeds fired straight at his face. He stumbled, clutching his face as it flared with pain, and fell forward due to the sudden lack of support.
“Seedot!” The cry came from a minuscule pokemon which resembled an acorn. An acorn with two tiny legs and eyes, but an acorn nonetheless. Something Ash did notice during his observation was that the pokemon’s body was puffing a bit, a clear sign to experienced trainers that it was preparing to fire another bout of seeds. Unfortunately for Ash, he was not an experienced trainer, and he was swiftly bombarded with more seeds. After a few more seeds to the face, Ash finally had enough and he got up when the seedot was busy charging its attack.
Silently Ash pointed his finger at the seedot. Ash had practiced this cue for Quick Attack earlier with Pikachu, and he hoped that Pikachu would notice the command. Fortunately for him, Pikachu did notice it and the electric mouse launched itself at the seedot, causing the small pokemon to fly into a nearby tree, the momentum and the crash causing a lot of damage to the smaller pokemon. The crash which ensued caused the perching pidgeotto to fly off in alarm giving a little chirrup and Ash was once again reminded of his mother. His sweet, sweet mother. Shudder.
The seedot got back to its feet and started to glow a bright shade of red. Ash, in his adrenaline-filled daze, was too lost in his mind to recognize the attack.
Bide. It was an attack that allowed the user to hit back at their opponent with twice the amount of power it had been attacked with, but it was a tricky and fickle attack to execute, especially if the user had low damage enduring capacity.
While Ash stood there with a dazed look on his face, Pikachu was standing at a crossroad. The mouse could either send a miniscule electric attack to shock his trainer back to his senses and proceed to listen to what his trainer had to say to him, or he could take down the seedot on his own. A quick look at his trainer gave him all the information he needed to make a plan. As a new plan formed in Pikachu’s mind a sinister grin formed on the mouse’s face. This was going to be good.
Electricity slowly charged up in its cheek pouches and a slight crackling sound could be heard over the sounds of the forest. The sound increased in volume the more it was charged, until Pikachu finally released the attack at the seedot, a small charge running along the mouse's body and exiting out of his tail… directly at his trainer.
Both Ash and the seedot convulsed helplessly as the current passed through their body. For the young trainer, the sensation lasted for only a moment and quickly brought him back to reality, but for the seedot it lasted much longer.
The now focused teen looked around until his eyes landed on the seedot, and with a small flinch, he realized he was in a battle. He was an idiot; just because a pidgeotto chirped didn't mean he was going to get pecked… better to not continue that thought process.
Ash took stock of his surroundings and noticed his pikachu stare at the convulsing seedot… that poor thing, it must have been paralyzed. Does paralysis cause you to become red though? he thought to himself. That was when he realized that it was not paralysis that caused pokemon to become red, it was a move, and the only move that a seedot could possibly know to turn red would be…bide.
Although... isn't that pokemon unconscious? Ash thought to himself. Almost as if to prove that thought wrong, the acorn pokemon got up and then promptly ran into the bushes. He let out a small breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. But then he came to a realisation.
Brock uses rock type pokemon, right? And seedots are a grass type pokemon. It is a bit of a weak one, but that is fine, I can train it up… hopefully. I’ll have an advantage over Brock if it all works out.
With that thought, Ash chased after the tiny seed, that could possibly be the key to his victory at the Pewter gym.
"Pikachu use Quick Attack and follow that seedot before it gets away."
"Pika!"
After a few minutes of running Ash finally caught up to the seedot and Pikachu, the latter confusedly staring at the small acorn pokemon enjoying an Oran Berry, seemingly cured of its paralysis.
"Pikachu, use Quick Attack to get close and follow it up with a Thundershock!" Before he finished his command, Pikachu was off, running at breakneck speeds towards the seedot. There was however one thing they both had forgotten; the seedot still had Bide set up. The thought occurred to both of them too late, and as Pikachu’s cheeks sparked from the electricity being released at his opponent, a small pulse of energy detonated from the seedot. Both Pokemon fell back, loosing consciousness at the same time.
He ran up to Pikachu, clutching the tiny mouse in his hand with slight worry. With his free hand, he quickly reached for an empty pokeball, and threw it at the seedot. The pokeball struck the seedot and sucked it in a red light. Just like the other two pokemon he had caught earlier, it kept on shaking for a while, indicating that Seedot was struggling. Ash held his breath, hoping that the pokemon was weak enough for the pokeball to contain it. When the ball stopped shaking, Ash let out a sigh of relief, his partner hadn't fainted in vain.
Ash got to his knees and took off his bag, reaching into it for a Revive. He fed it to Pikachu, jerking his partner out of consciousness.
"Are you alright?" Ash asked with a gentle smile.
"Pika," the small Pokemon nodded weakly, trying for a smile, but instead giving something that looked to be a cross between a grimace and a smile.
“Not as easy as catching Spinarak and Hoothoot, huh?” Ash told his partner, as he touched the pokeballs on his waist, as if to check if they were still there.
“Pika pi,” his partner replied, thinking about the other pokemon they were travelling with. The entire friendship thing was a work in progress with them.
"Pika-cha~", Pikachu yawned, Ash looked at the pokemon for a bit. Maybe it was time for a rest. They had been walking continuously for a while so a little rest won't be that bad. Especially after that Quick Attack spam. Come to think of it, he himself was a bit tired, having limited travelling experience.
"This looks like a nice spot to rest, nice shade and," Ash yawned, “it is hidden, a very important thing you know”, Ash whispered as he cradled the tiny mouse against his chest and eventually nodded off, the evening sun rays peeking through the foliage.
For the next few hours both Ash and Pikachu were asleep. Pikachu was getting a well-deserved rest after his battle, and it only took so long before his trainer joined him. They reveled in their sleep, blissfully unaware of the world around them. This proved to be a fatal mistake.
Ash woke up with a start as he felt a sort of prickly feeling throughout his body. The source turned out to be the tiny, almost negligible, amounts of electricity his partner was pumping into him. Looking into the eyes of his partner, the fear was palpable.
Pikachu was waving his arms around frantically, pointing deeper into the forest, the same spot from where a buzzing sound seemed to be emanating from. A feeling of horror seized his heart and Ash jumped up in a standing position, all the while hoping against all hope it wasn’t them.
Ash slowly started to back away, realizing that maybe standing in the same spot might be a bad idea. His lessons from the various survival classes he took back at the academy kicked in. What was it that the old man used to say about a situation like this? It seemed Ash had forgotten, at least in his panicked state.
Oh Shit.
During the small window of time where he had spent thinking about what his old teacher had taught him, a creature had writhed out of the moonlit woods. It was a beedrill, and a dying one at that.
How? Who could have done such a thi- Oh no… is that a dent. What could have possibly caused a dent in that creature? This just seems like a bad situation and didn’t the old man say something about this situation… Oh man this was bad…
He could faintly recall one of the Professor's classes on the Viridian Forest. He had taught them that dying beedrills emitted a sort of pheromone that caused nearby beedrills to go into a rage. If a human or a pokemon or even an object were covered in this pheromone, any beedrill within a small range would attack them for thirty minutes or longer, the time depended on the strength of the beedrill and the potency of its venom.
With thoughts of a yellow striped body mutilated by three sharp stingers, Ash Ketchum ran away in the opposite direction, directly into the forest. He came to a startling realization; he was no longer on the moderately safe Rookie Path, and he sure as hell wasn’t running towards it. He had blindly chased the seedot without considering the consequences of leaving the path. Getting off that path was a stupid idea, he chided himself. As he ran, he felt Pikachu get out of his arms and jump onto his shoulder. He had never seen the tiny creature express such a look of terror, and it only made Ash pick up his pace even more.
It took Ash a few moments to notice the buzzing sound, he had thought it was his ears ringing from all the running, but unfortunately, it was not.
But we didn’t-
His thoughts were interrupted by a voice in his head.
“When a beedrill or any bug pokemon die, they emit a chemical all around the area. How it spreads is a question that has gone unanswered, but if you have it on you then your best chance is to jump into a river. If it is a beedrill that has emitted this pheromone on you, any nearby beedrills will get a significant boost in their strength, in fact, all of their stats double, this is an effect only seen in this species of pokemon and people have taken advan- Ash! Why are you sleeping in my class!”
After Ash had managed to convince the professor that he wasn’t half-asleep, the professor had gone on to explain about beedrill venom, something that would leave you writhing in pain for hours, if not days. The only cure for it was the sweet honey produced by the beedrills themselves - a sort of remedy that could even cure common cold - but the issue was getting to a beedrill hive in the first place. Even tamed beedrill were notorious for guarding their hive.
Ash suddenly stopped, glued to his spot by fear. There in front of him was a gigantic beedrill, and it was coming right at him, pointing its stinger at Ash’s chest. Its speed reminded Ash of those shows he had seen on the TV about missiles, it was just that fast.
The beedrill was stopped by a surprise attack by his partner. Pikachu quickly used Ash’s shoulders as a launchpad to throw itself at the beedrill. The pokemon used Quick Attack to speed up and intercepted the beedrill with a resounding thud. The beedrill crashed into the ground, and seizing the chance, Pikachu let loose a Thundershock which caused the beedrill to writhe in pain from its spot on the ground. Ash snapped out of his stupor and picked a pokeball out of his backpack, he was going to catch this beedri- More buzzing noises began closing in, and Ash ground his teeth as he put the pokeball back into his backpack, Pikachu jumping onto Ash’s shoulder as he turned tail and ran.
After running for a while, Ash - against all his survival instincts - turned back to see five beedrills pursuing him. He tried to focus back on his path, but the heavy running was starting to take its toll on him.
“PIKA-CHUUUUU!” Pikachu's signature battle cry came followed by another crackle of lightning. Pikachu was using his Thundershock to take down as many of the beedrill he could manage from his shoulder, but despite the tiny mouse’s best attempts to try to avoid hitting Ash, he was failing, and Ash grit his teeth with every shock that coursed through his body.
“PIKACHU! It's no use attacking. We’ll have to run”, Ash pleaded and Pikachu nodded grimly, determined to stay behind and protect Ash from the beedrill in case they caught up. After all, this human was the reason he was out of that stupid lab right now.
It had been five long hours since Bruce had set out from his log cabin, five long hours since he had felt warmth or safe. He knew he had to continue his hunt, if he didn’t… the outcome was too unbearable to think about. During these five hours he got lost, found his way back and managed to almost lose his secret weapon.
His monetary problems started the day he bought his secret weapon, a beast that was strong enough to defeat legendaries. Despite the problems that came with being broke, the pokemon had kept him happy. He had after that started working at the Celadon Bar, and things had gone well to the point he thought that his money issue was as good as solved… oh how naive he was.
The problem became apparent by his third week of work. He was clumsy, stupidly so since he managed to bring down entire shelves worth of alcohol in mere seconds. Truly a master of his art. He couldn’t ever remember being that clumsy, which was odd.
Soon he was fired and had neither a job nor money, what he did have though was this massive debt.
To combat his problems he battled rookie trainers from this town called Pallet and earned a lot of money from them, but that quickly stopped after the establishment of that accursed Academy, and he had to soon turn to battle centres. Since the nearest one was at Celadon he decided to go there.
At the battle centre his luck started to shine, he and his pokemon, Pinsir, had become very successful and earned a lot of money, although every time he brought out his secret weapon the opponent forfeited calling him insane. It must have been the beast’s hidden power. This good life lasted for almost five years.
The success had soon gotten to his head and he could not help but want more money. This continued until he began to lose. Everyone who saw his secret weapon refused to battle him, and even the referees forbade him from using it. All this led to his eventual fall from grace and he was soon left with nothing.
Every last one of his possessions was soon sold for the sake of food for himself and his pinsir, and this continued until he had nothing left to sell, he had at that point decided to sell his secret weapon, but then at that point his memory went blank. It picked up right at the point where he decided he won’t sell the cocooned beast… which was odd… but it wasn’t anything to worry about, the pokemon will pay for itself at some point.
In the former years of his life as a poor person, due to his proud nature, he could not bring himself to beg for food but it only took mere weeks before he began to wander around the city doing just that. It was during one of his excursions that he learned about a man who was looking for an elusive scyther. The man was supposedly willing to pay handsomely for the pokemon, and it heavily sparked Burce’s interest. This was his lucky break.
After spending days searching for the person who put out the request he had finally found him. His name was Giovanni and he was the original owner of the scyther. The kind man even paid him in advance.
The first thing he did with the money was to buy Samurai equipment to keep himself safe from the scyther. The fact that he liked to dress as a Samurai was definitely not the main reason.
Knowing what he did about scyther behavior, he searched almost every forest in the vicinity but the pokemon eluded him completely.
All this brings us back to the present. Bruce was still searching for the elusive scyther, and his ever-faithful pinsir was right behind him as they both made their way to the nearby river. The riverbank was a place that every pokemon in the vicinity made their way to at some point, and he knew that the Scyther must be there. It was only a matter of time before he caught it.
After spending minutes trekking through and admiring the forest, the samurai was finally at the river. It was a beautiful day and the sunlight glittered along the fresh stream. The conditions were perfect. To ensure that the scyther did come today, he put a bait by the riverside. Bruce figured that the slight breeze would help spread it throughout the forest.
He sat down in a comfortable sitting position, waiting for the creature to come. While waiting he spaced out, thinking about his strategy. At first, he was going to defeat the scyther using his pinsir, and if she fainted, he would use his secret weapon.
The Legend-Killer was special, he knew it. He was waiting for it to evolve so that it could become something that went beyond a mere Legend Killer; it would be a Pantheon Destroyer.
Its power would be so great that it would solo Lance’s entire team, and then some. Or at least that was what the seller told him.
The seller had also mentioned something about the beast forcing people to forfeit, which had worked so far, and then had gone on to tell him not to overuse it, or the hubris of victory would consume him completely. The mere thought of such a thing scared him.
He was jerked out of his thoughts by a steady humming noise that was emanating from behind him. He glanced sideways to see that Pinsir had frozen, looking at something behind them. He turned around slowly-
-only to see a scyther flying behind them. He nearly let out a shriek in excitement. Finally, after so long, the pokemon he had traveled all over Kanto to find was right behind him.
He had anticipated this moment for so long, upped the training of his pokemon to ridiculous levels, and had memorized every possible way for the scyther to attack so that they would have a counter to every possible situation.
“Pinsir, Seismic Toss”, the first command was issued from his mouth, almost on its own, the sudden noise causing the scyther to turn its head towards his direction.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Pinsir moved at an incredible speed towards Scyther, she grabbed her fellow bug type before leaping onto a treetop, from where she jumped and slammed Scyther into the ground with an incredible force.
The scyther was stunned, but it didn’t allow that fact to deter it. It charged right at Pinsir, a streak of white blinding light being the only way to track its movement. It crashed directly into Pinsir, the claws on its arms ripping into the creature, creating an unsightly gash, but it was fine. Powdered Oran Berries were more than enough to heal a gash like that, and luckily he had some on him.
While he was thinking of remedies to the wound, Scyther had used the momentum of the attack to propel backward, but Pinsir- in a brilliant showcase of her battle instincts - had grabbed Scyther and, through the use of Bind, had trapped it in a death grip. All that training had paid off.
No matter how much Scyther struggled, it couldn’t break free of Pinsir’s grip. Samurai smiled a bit, while the gash seemed serious they had succeeded.
This was the movement he was waiting for, his hands found their way into his pouch, he took out an empty Netball, and -taking a deep breath- threw it with full force at the scyther. The Netball traced an arc as it flew towards Scyther-
-only for it to hit a beedrill instead. The netball shook once, then twice after that with a soft blue light it stopped moving, this indicated the struggle taking place within, and the subsequent capture.
Everyone standing there, including Scyther, was left frozen to their spot in surprise. Pinsirwas so shocked that she had let Scyther go, who seized its chance at escaping this insanity and promptly fled into the darkness of the night,
Bruce was shocked, he looked at the empty spot where the scyther had been moments before. His one chance at the scyther, his one chance at clearing his debt and making a name for himself, all that and more was lost. All because of a stupid beedrill. He had even given away his entire team to Giovanni as insurance.
“Pinsir, return,” he did not want his pokemon to see him venting his frustration at a bunch of trees, and it would allow his pinsir to rest.
Once he had taken his anger out on defenseless foliage, he calmed down significantly. He thought rationally and asked himself what a beedrill was doing so far out. No beedrill ever wandered out of the forest alone.
This question was soon answered when someone came hurling through the bushes, faint buzzing noises following his thunderous arrival. An odd-looking boy who wore a league cap crashed right into Bruce, giving him no time to react or get out of the way. The boy and the pikachu he had seen on his shoulder fell onto him. He lost balance, and the trio promptly fell into the river.
All three of them immediately began to try and get out of the river. It was a battle that involved entangled limbs, a lot of drowning, and a wee bit of electrocution from the electric mouse.
The moment they were out of the water all three of them began to wheeze and choke in an attempt to get the water they had ingested out of their system.
“Sorry”, the guy said, looking very apologetic. He saw him look around frantically for a second, before taking a deep breath and jumping into the river yet again. He saw the boy along with the pikachu swim quickly, as if terribly frightened.
Bruce wondered what was that about until a buzzing sound began to assault his ears. He turned around, only to let out a shriek at the sight which greeted his eyes. That damned boy had brought an army of very pissed off looking beedrills.
He quickly dived back down into the river water, hoping that they would just fly past. He felt fear seize his heart, he had ever seen such a large swarm of bloody beedrills of all things flying together like that. The swarm was so massive that they looked as though they were one creature. He stayed underwater, hoping that he wouldn’t be spotted.
Bzzzzzt. The sound was constant, almost never-ending, this served to show the sheer size of the swarm that was following that boy. Even after a few minutes of being underwater, the buzzing noise did not go away. Bruce was now stuck in between a rock and a hard place; he could either drown to death, or risk going back to the surface and breathing, which could lead to him being picked out as a target by the beedrill.
A few more minutes passed and now Bruce only had one question, why were they following the boy in lar- wait. The boy must have Pheromone B on him. It was a pheromone emitted by dying beedrills, it could only be washed away by… water! No wonder the boy had jumped into the river. It wasn’t water itself that washed away the pheromone however, it was an odd plant that released some sort of weird anti-
Mid thought his air supply ran out and his mouth instinctively opened for air. Cold water filled his lungs and blood pounded behind his eyes. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to resurface, but he didn’t, the fear of the beedrills outweighed the fear of drowning.
Finally, he gave in to his instincts as the sensation of drowning increased and finally surfaced. As he did, the last few beedrills flew over him, but to his surprise, they ignored him, opting to just fly ahead with the rest of the swarm, and he knew this was not ordinary beedrill behavior. Then a thought struck him; what if the river water they were in was a pheromone amplifier? The crunch at his feet confirmed that thought… it was a river basculin. Their detritus amplified the effect of any and all pheromone that came into contact with them. Which basically meant that he was surrounded by hungry water types that just pooped out their earlier meal.
When I get out of here I am going to kill that bloody kid.
“I choose you, go Metapod,” the wannabe samurai sent out his trusty shiny and tied a rope around it. Just as the basculin moved to bite the samurai, he flung the shiny onto the other side, directly onto the branch of a tree and said, “Metapod, use harden!”
The trainer yelled this a few more times while enduring the chomps of the basculins. At some point they had begun cutting through his skin. Thankfully he wasn’t a water-dwelling pokemon, otherwise… he shuddered.
Once the legen- metapod’s shell was strong enough, he slowly but painfully pulled himself to the surface. As he did this a small headache made itself known to him, a pain, a feeling of being stuck to something and pulled… A headache that made itself known to him everytime he used Metapod.
Once he was safely on land he looked down at his legs, if they could even be called that, all he could see was shredded flesh that looked horrifying, and if it weren’t for his beloved metapod he didn’t even want to think about what would have happened.
He reached into his pouch and took out a healing salve, he knew he should have bought the full samurai set, but unfortunately, he needed it for the other supplies. He sighed as he rubbed the salve onto his feet, the chomps of the basculin that attempted to get to him serving as the background noise.
Ash gasped for breath every time his feet touched the floor. His lungs and heart were bursting, one taking in as much oxygen as it could and the other trying to break out of his chest. His limbs were in a bad shape due to the basculins that called the river their home. The pain was unbearable, but despite all that, he kept on running, a completely soaked Pikachu by his side.
The farther he ran, the more things he began to see. Some constructed by his fatigued mind and others real, but by this point, Ash could not tell the difference between them. The gigantic figure lurking at the edge of his vision was starting to look as real as the trees around him. Was there even trees around him?
For some reason, the roots of the trees extended when he got close to them. Sometimes he tripped over them and was sent sprawling onto the ground, but the buzzing sound kept him running. Other times he tried to sidestep them, but even then the roots did not give up, they tried to follow him.
At some point, he couldn’t tell the difference between when he was imagining the sounds of the beedrills buzzing and when it actually happened. The forest was starting to take its toll on the young trainer, but Ash knew he had no choice but to run. If he stopped, the toll of all the running would cause him to stop and he would be killed by the beedrills.
“Pika pikachu,” the mouse said before running into a particularly dark path. As much as he didn’t want to go there, he knew that his partner was up to something clever, and so Ash, despite the fear of death and the unknown in his heart, followed his best friend.
The path they were on was crooked, it forced them to take many turns at the oddest places, the entire path was built almost like a maze, there were paths that led to nowhere and even pokemon that tried to attack them. Thankfully Pikachu was strong enough to make quick work of them.
Turning another corner Ash ran faster, the buzzing had returned.
Against everything his body told him Ash turned behind him to see whether or not the Beedrills were there, only to slam directly into a thorny bush, some thorns on the bush pushed into his body, past the skin, and small streams of blood appeared on his arms and legs. He extracted himself from the bush to try and run back the way he came, only to come face to face with them.
Once again fear consumed him, but this time it took over both his mind and body and he lurched forward, the exhaustion finally setting in.
He was covered entirely in bloody gashes, to the point where even his mouth tasted coppery due to the amount of blood it contained. Ash spat out all that blood that had accumulated in his mouth, but it was no use, the cut was still generating blood, it seemed as though the taste would never go away.
Ash opened his eyes, the beedrills surrounded him completely, but for some reason, some of them looked like they were differently colored, whispers echoed in his ears. The blood loss was starting to make him feel lightheaded.
He bit his tongue to focus, but due to the pain he was already in he found that it was a futile effort.
“Pi..ka..ch..u….. Bu...ddy…. Run,” Ash wheezed out and to his surprise, Pikachu ran away.
Is this how I am fated to die? Surrounded by pokemon who want to kill me… I wish this wasn't the end... He looked around in hopes of finding some secret escape route, but unfortunately, he didn’t find any. This is it. The end of a very short life and a journey, hopefully, Pikachu survives and finds a better trainer… Someone who can take care of him… Dammit! I should have listened to her… I should have listened to my mom… so… sorry... Ash finally resigned himself to his fate.
His life would be like all the others; meaningless and ordinary. He would die without making his mark on the world, forgotten with time.
Sure, he would be mourned by his mother and the old professor, but besides them, who would care? He would be just one person out of millions of others like him, with nothing distinguishing him from the rest. Just another cog in the mac-
“Pika pika,” his dark thoughts were interrupted by a frantic sounding Pikachu who appeared out of the darkness wielding a stick and some… berries?
Whenever one of the beedrills got close to Ash, the pokemon poked them back with the stick, all the while eating the berry.
Once it was done eating the berry the mouse dropped the stick and got into a stance, his cheeks were emitting small amounts of sparks, “Pi pi pika pikachu,” it chanted as it rubbed its cheeks, for what reason Ash did not know.
Then it happened. Ash’s world erupted in the most brilliant shade of yellow and white he had ever seen. The beauty of the blinding light moved him to touch it, and suddenly pain flared through his nerves. He could not remove his hands from the light even if he tried. Panic shot through his body, and pain rocked his world.
As quickly as it began the entire spectacle was over, the sudden darkness that rushed into his eyes almost blinding him.
The pain he felt had been so great even the mere thought of it made him wince. Even now he felt every part of his body flare with pain. Ash tried to open his eyes to the best of his ability and was greeted by the sight of Pikachu who was carrying an armful of oran berries.
“Pika pi,” the small mouse smiled and fed him one of the oran berries he had, and Ash could immediately fel his nerves stitching themselves back together, he even felt he could breathe better like some sort of hidden block had been removed from his lungs.
Ash slowly tried to stand up, and while it felt painful, it was nothing compared to the pain he had been in before.
Bzzt! The sounds were back, but didn’t the bright light take out all the beedrills? Maybe some had survived, Ash turned to look at the spot from where he had heard the buzzing noise, to see… a massacre. There was no other way to describe it. While there were still many beedrills left, their numbers had been halved, more than halved even seeing the amount lying dead on the floor.
The surviving beedrills looked almost shocked, he wanted to laugh at them but they did not look very pleased with the outcome. If anything they seemed downright pissed, but for some reason, they did not move.
The reason quickly became apparent when a buzzing sound emanated from behind him. Ash quickly swiveled around looking behind him to see a beedrill moving at an incredible speed towards him. It was fast, but Pikachu was faster, using a combination of Quick Attack and Agility to get in range with the beedrill. Once he was close enough, Pikachu let loose a combination of Thunderwave and Tackle throwing it back while causing paralysis, before charging up and releasing a Thundershock which caused the beedrill to drop down unconscious.
The other beedrills backed away at this display of power, but Ash knew it wouldn’t last. Soon they would all attack at once, and when that happened, Pikachu would surely be overpowered. There might not have been as many as before, but there were enough of them to overwhelm Pikachu and him. All of a sudden there was a crash.
He looked around, trying to see what happened, where the crash had come from. It seemed even the beedrills were curious about the crash as even they were looking around. Seizing the chance Pikachu and Ash ran right through the gap between the beedrill formation, any that were in their way were promptly electrocuted.
It took a while but they managed to escape the beedrills, and that was when he saw the foliage next to them shake. Out of it emerged a figure clad in a gaudy Samurai Armor. The last time he had seen one of these was in one of his mother’s TV programmes.
The person, a boy who looked to be a bit older than him, was frantically gesturing towards him and Ash recognized him as the guy he had run into earlier.
Ash ran towards him, the bugs may have been farther back, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they found him again, particularly since they were once again covered in the beedrill pheromone. The boy got back into the foliage and covered it up while looking him in the eye. Clearly, he meant Ash should follow him.
Ash took off towards the direction he assumed the Samurai was in with Pikachu bringing up the rear, ready to battle any beedrill that entered in after them. As he ran, he could hear the crack of thunder and thudding sounds signaling that some of the beedrills had gotten through the gaps, and that Pikachu’s attacks were really effective in deterring them.
Soon the Samurai was in sight, he was waiting for them at the point where the paths diverged “This way”, the Samurai told him, as he ran in said direction, leaving Ash wondering, how in the name of Distortion did that Samurai run so fast with so much equipment?
Ash had no time to wonder as the damned Samurai ran almost as though the devil himself were on his heels. If it weren’t for the low buzzing sounds behind them Ash would have asked him to slow down.
Ash turned around a corner and suddenly they were out of the bush path and in a clearing. He quickly spotted an eyesore of a log cabin. “Hurry! Get in!” Samurai shouted, and Ash did not argue. All three of them quickly got into the cabin, with the Samurai locking the door behind them. The cabin was shrouded in darkness, and the samurai walked into it.
He returned with a small candle and he placed it on a table by a shelf. The room that was revealed by the room looked shabby almost lazily put together.
“The beedrills won’t be able to get in now, but just in case,” the Samurai threw a bottle that was sitting on his shelf at him, “before you ask, no that is not poison or one of those sleeping potions, it’s bottled beedrill honey.”
“Didn’t know they still sold these”, Ash said looking at the Samurai suspiciously as he sat down by the window.
“Relax,” the samurai said holding his hands out, “it’s from a personal stash, you can never know what happens in this forest, and so you can never be prepared enough for a trip here", well that was true, he had almost died due to not preparing. What was he even thinking getting off of the path?
“The name’s Bruce”, the Samurai said his name with a sort of pride flair to it as he leaned against the wall in what was supposed to be a cool pose, but unfortunately he failed miserably.
“Ash Ketchum'', Ash introduced himself rather dully after he gulped down the bottle of honey. His mind kept flashing back to the beedrills, their beady eyes filled with loathing, an emotion directed towards him. A part of him still liked the pokemon and that terrified him, would something like this happen again, would he almost die to another beedrill attack, would he-
"What are you thinking about?", Bruce cut through his dark thoughts.
"Oh nothing much…. Why do you have a hut in the Viridian forest anyway? Do you live here?”, Ash asked half-heartedly he just wanted all this over with. Maybe some sleep. That sounded good right about now.
“It’s not a hut!”, the Samurai yelled.
“Then?”
“It’s a shack.”
“Sure, whatever you say.”
"IT IS A SHACK YOU BRAT!"
"... if I'm a brat then you are a guy who argues with brats… think on that for a bit."
The more they talked the more Ash found pleasure in annoying the Samurai, the guy had amazing reactions, something that reminded him of himself. Anything was better than thinking about the beedrills at this point.
“What about you? What are you doing in these parts of the Viridian forest?” Bruce asked Ash, once he had calmed down.
“I was on my way to the Pewter Gym, got sidetracked and lost”, Ash replied.
“Think you can win the badge?”, Bruce taunted, “gym leaders are supposed to be pretty strong. You sure you can take one on?”
“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here”, Ash replied curtly.
The samurai was unfazed, with a smirk he asked, “what do you say we battle to see if you can back your words up?”
While he had grown up around Gary, who was a hundred times worse than this guy,Ash couldn’t help but feel insulted. Either way battling the samurai would be a good way to test where he stood.
‘Besides, the gym leader would be a lot harder to battle than this guy who can’t even build a house,’ he thought to himself amusedly.
“Let's do it then”, Ash said. He got up and started to open the door but the samurai ran up to him and pulled him back, he even abandoned his cool pose and everything.
“Idiot! First, wait for the beedrills to leave,” Bruce said looking panicky and Ash nodded sheepishly making his way back to the chair by the window sill, waiting for the danger to pass.
It had been three hours, three long and gruesome hours filled with boring and pointless chatter. Eventually, the beedrills had left, with no trace of them ever being there. Both Ash and Samurai headed out slowly, the moment they got outside they hissed covering their eyes, shielding it from the morning sun. It seems like they had managed to talk through the night.
Bruce recovered faster than Ash and looked around to see if the area was safe, he was shortly joined by Ash who was a bit worried about beedrills appearing out of nowhere.
Once they had made sure that they were indeed safe they both stood at the opposing sides of the samurai’s homemade battlefield. Ash was excited but at the same time, he was nervous, the prospect of a battle washing away his earlier fears.
This was his first trainer battle ever since he had started his journey, this battle was bound to be more interesting than those in the wild. He straightened up, hoping he didn’t look as nervous as he felt. After all, if the other trainer knew that you were nervous, half the battle was lost.
“Let's start this battle, 1v1?” Bruce asked.
Ash thought for a moment, before shaking his head, “no, 2v2”, he replied.
“Okay then, I’ll send out my pokemon first,” Bruce said before detaching a pokeball from his belt and throwing it, out of which appeared a Metapod.
Ash did a double-take upon seeing it. The metapod was shiny, a rare variant of the pokemon which had a different color, it was orange.
All the same, he wondered why the guy sent a metapod out, all cocoon pokemon were notoriously weak, due to their fragile outer body. ‘Focus’, he told himself, shaking his head. Despite wanting to not battle the metapod Ash thought that maybe the samurai knew what he was doing, the guy did look experienced after all.
‘I can’t use Hoothoot or Seedot. I just caught them and haven’t even let them out of their pokeballs. Since I want to save Pikachu for later, guess that leaves only-’
He detached a pokeball from his belt and threw it into the air. A bright blue light came out of it and condensed before forming a small green bug, with a small stinger on its head. It clicked its jaws before coming to a stop, staring at its opponent. It was a spinarak, pre-evolution of one of the most dangerous bugs in the world, Ariados.
“Take the first move”, Bruce offered pompously, Ash sweatdropped, that poor metapod.
“Spinarak, Poison Sting”, Spinarak leaped into the air and landed, immediately stabbing the metapod with its stinger. Although the Metapod’s tough shell would prevent the stinger from penetrating too deep, the stinger still managed to poison the metapod.
Bruce frowned at Metapod, being poisoned had put him in the spot, but thankfully he had taught the pokemon to harden without being given the command. “Metapod crush the bug with your Tackle”, the samurai said not realising that Metapod itself is a bug.
Ash did another double-take upon hearing that, “are you crazy? You’re seriously going to endanger your own pokemon for one measly battle?” He yelled.
It was a well-known fact that making metapod or any other cocoon pokemon use tackle could cause their cocoon to break open, causing them to evolve prematurely, which could be very harmful as they wouldn’t have developed properly at that point.
Metapod, for example, would have deformed wings as a butterfree if they evolved prematurely.
“Beware! This isn’t a regular metapod like you think it is. This is the Legend Killer, the metapod that will destroy the league as you know it when it evolves.”
Ash cringed for Bruce. Just how dumb was this guy?
“What the- were you dropped on your head as a baby? What the hell are you smoking, you idiot?” Ash sputtered.
“Focus on the battle and prepared to be bedazzled”, Bruce said, gesturing at the pokemon.
Ash returned his gaze to the battle, seeing that while they were arguing, the metapod had moved barely 5 inches and wasn’t even close to Spinarak. He sighed, “Spinarak put that poor thing out of its misery. Infestation”, Spinarak let out a screeching noise. From around them, answers came in the form of screeches.
Soon the whole area was surrounded by spinaraks of many shapes and sizes. They all crawled towards the battlefield, glaring at the metapod with murderous intent. Ash saw the samurai panicking, as various Spinarak crawled over Metapod and viciously attacked it.
Ash's spinarak plunged its stinger directly into Metapod’s cocoon causing it to squeal, while another bit another part of the cocoon, breaking a part of the cocoon.
“Metapod!”, Bruce yelled, worried. He pulled out Metapod's pokeball, but instead of instantly withdrawing the pokemon he, oddly enough, walked upto the pokemon. The spinaraks at first made moves to attack but Ash’s spinarak made some clicking sounds causing them to stay there, observing the events that unfolded in front of them.
The samurai once he reached the metapod, scooped it into his arms, seemingly cradling it like a baby, “I forfeit Metapod '', he said looking grim. Ash smiled. Round one to him.
Metapod was retrieved after this strange spectacle causing the spinaraks to return to wherever they came from leaving Ash's spinarak alone on the field, waiting for its next opponent.
The samurai pulled out another pokeball while gritting his teeth and in a flash of blue light, a pinsir came out, battle-ready.
Pinsirs were a rare species of pokemon and this specimen was especially magnificent due to the sharpness of its horns and the thorns-like structures protruding out of it.
“Pinsir, use Swords Dance and follow it up with Strength”, the command came from Samurai, and the pinsir went through a series of moments before jumping towards the small bug.
“Dodge and use Poison sting”, came Ash’s command.
After the command Ash quickly turned to look at the pinsir, he did not want to miss even a moment of this battle. The pokemon was surrounded by a blue glow, signaling the rise in its attack power and it moved with speed so incredible that it was horrifying to even think that this was this pokemon’s natural speed. Spinarak sidestepped the attack and tried to plunge its stinger into Pinsir, but Pinsir immediately took to the air and came crashing down onto Spinarak with a full force Strength, crushing Spinarak and knocking it out in a single blow.
Ash stood there in absolute shock. The attack’s power was incredible, and it had been held longer than a minute, which was the charge limit for most moves. And even through all that, it had managed to outpace a spinarak - a creature smaller than itself - which was something that should have been faster than the much larger and bulkier Pinsir.
The most awe inspiring factor of all this was the attack's strength. The attack was so strong it had knocked out Spinarak in a single blow. He shook his head in dismay as his mind thought up strategies at a quick pace. Maybe this won't be as easy as he had thought it to be.
Pinsir was fast, and it hit hard, especially with the Swords Dance boost. He only had one option. “Mind beating that pinsir, buddy?”, Ash asked his first friend. Pikachu jumped off his shoulder, landing on his feet, before involuntarily tensing up with a ferocious warcry of “Pika!”
“Pikachu keep your distance from Pinsir and use Charge”, Ash commanded smoothly and Pikachu stood there, looking warily at Pinsir. Small sparks jumped across his cheeks, indicating the build up of his electricity reserves.
“This is for Metapod! Pinsir use Bug Bite and throw that Pikachu onto the tree”, Samurai commanded vengefully.
“Dodge it”, Ash countered. Hearing this, Pikachu did a pirouette, and the intended attack missed him by almost an inch. Pikachu reoriented himself using a combination of Agility and Quick Attack, and using the momentum from those moves, Pikachu ran to the other end of the field, looking almost like a yellow blur.
“Thunderwave”, Ash’s next command came, and Pikachu released a wave of lightning that hit Pinsir. The sheer strength of the attack pushed the pokemon back and paralysed it.
“Pinsir, brave through it and use Swords Dance!”, the samurai yelled.
“Pikachu, Nuzzle!”
Using the boost provided by the two Agility and coupled with Quick Attack, Pikachu launched himself at Pinsir. To the two spectators, he was nothing but a blur at this point. Pinsir tried to attack the mouse, but he dodged it and rubbed his cheeks against the pinsir, the electrical charge stored in his cheeks damaging the pinsir.
The samurai gritted his teeth and stared at Ash with contempt in his eyes.
“Strength”, Pinsir again leapt towards Pikachu, trying to use the same maneuver as before but then the paralysis effect kicked in, and Pinsir was down. Pikachu used Quick attack to jump in an arc above Pinsir and used it again to shift his momentum to launch himself right at the pokemon. The pinsir’s eyes widened.
“Pinsir, move out of the way,” but it was too late, the pokemon was already hit, but unfortunately for Ash, Pinsir did not faint.
“Pinsir, use Guillotine,” the samurai said darkly. Pinsir wobbled towards Pikachu, and Ash’s eyes widened. The action looked terrifying to him. “Pikachu, get out of there!!!!” he screamed, and Pikachu jumped, but unfortunately it had jumped above Pinsir. Ash had to watch as Pikachu jumped over Pinsir, his perception of time slowing down as he watched the pinsir jump and pluck Pikachu out of the air with its powerful pincers’ which were glowing an ominous white, an explosion followed causing Ash’s ears to ring and the battlefield to fill up with smoke and dust.
Ash anxiously waited for the smoke to clear to see what had happened. The moment the smoke cleared Ash's eyes darted around looking around for Pikachu. He spotted him lying unconscious in the middle of the field, causing Ash to run over to him. He took a revive out of his bag and fed it to Pikachu as he scooped the tiny creature up into his arms. The reaction was immediate, all the cuts on him healed, but Pikachu still did not get up, the mental toll was still too great.
“Well well well, you clearly aren’t as strong as you thought you were”, Samurai started smugly, “but that said it was a close one,” he admitted grudgingly.
“Thanks a lot, but… I don’t need your pity Bruce”, Ash said as he handed over a few pokedollars to the samurai. The reason for this being, the set of reforms that the league had introduced to attract people towards the profession called pokemon training. One of them, as anyone can probably guess, was a monetary prize for winning a battle.
“Uh Uh. Give me your pokemon as well,” the samurai said in a tone that sounded uncaring, but it had a slightly worried undertone to it, he tried to play it off by counting the money in his hands.
“Are you crazy? No!”, Ash said firmly, his expression looking a bit lost and worried.
“Hand them over or I’ll be forced to persuade you into doing it”, the samurai - no… samurais were honorable, this person was not - Bruce said with a malicious smile adorning his face.
Ash slowly started to back away. He was now aware of the fact he was dealing with someone crazy, someone who was willing to do anything just to get what he wanted. Why did Bruce save him though? None of this made any sense. Why was his journey going down like this?
“Hey come here. Where are you going?” Bruce said with the malicious smirk turning into a sadistic smile, he looked like he was enjoying himself. Ash turned around and quickly broke into a sprint.
“Pinsir return,” the bug would be a liability due to its paralysis in this chase, “Beedrill come on out I need your help.”
Quickly filling in the pokemon on what was happening, the twisted samurai began chasing after the running trainer.
Ash Ketchum was tired of running. Ever since this journey had begun, he had constantly needed to run. First from those thrice damned beedrills, and now from a maniac. This was going to be a pain tomorrow, that is if he lived to see tomorrow, the chances of which were getting slimmer by the moment.
He took a few turns, hoping that he could lose his pursuer, but he had no such luck. Bruce kept on coming after him, there was a beedrill with him too. Hopefully he wouldn’t have a fear of bug pokemon by the end of this adventure. Pikachu being in his arms didn’t help his speed at all, and he knew he needed a plan. Something, anything to escape from this situation… but every thought, every idea led him to a dead end… he had no hope, unless...
He suddenly took a sharp left turn and ran straight almost like an arrow. From his peripheral vision he could see that Bruce was surprised, he got a feeling of satisfaction from that.
Just a few hundred meters more, he thought to himself, spurring himself to run forward. He needed speed, more speed and Ash forced himself to run forward. Every joint in his body, every limb, everything felt weak, but he forced himself to move forward.
Due to the speed he was running at he did not see the tree branch that was in front of him, and it caused him to trip and stumble through thorny bushes, until he finally landed in a small clearing with the air knocked out of him. The force at which he fell caused him to drop the pikachu in his arms, and the pokemon rolled a bit farther away from him.
Bruce by this point had caught up to and had unsheathed a sword he kept attached to his hip and pointed it at Ash’s throat, he had a crazed look in his eyes. “Give me your pokemon or else …”, he trailed off threateningly. Next to him, the beedrill buzzed menacingly as its red eyes glowed menacingly, but Ash wasn’t scared. He could feel a curious prod against his mind as something searched for something. Once it had found it, the feeling receded and Ash was alone once more. He panicked, was his plan a failure? He hoped not.
The panic and fear of failure only lasted for a moment as all of a sudden a force, nay energy, threw both Bruce and his beedrill into a tree. It looked quite painful, and Ash smiled to himself as he looked to his side. There, some 50 meters or so away, stood a pink dopey looking pokemon whose tail was covered by a large grey spikey shell-like creature that had two eyes near the base. It was a slowbro, and a league sanctioned one at that.
A league sanctioned pokemon was a pokemon trained by the league and placed on trainer routes to ensure the safety of trainers. Every trainer was taught the basic locations of these pokemon so that they may run to them in case of an emergency.
They were very powerful, but apparently, Bruce hadn’t gotten that memo since he was now trying to get his beedrill to attack it.
“Beedrill, Twin Needle”, he screamed as Beedrill sharpened its spikes against each other as it went for the attack, but it was easily forced back. Slowbro turned to Ash and moved towards him with a dopey smile on his face, deflecting every attack that Beedrill sent his way, he could hear the rising panic in Bruce’s voice as the pokemon got closer to Ash.
The slowbro stopped its movement next to him, “Slow,” it began and the world around him was consumed in yellow and pinkish-purple lights that seemed to be playing with each other. All of a sudden the purple colored light rushed at Ash and entered him “Bro!”. With that Ash, Pikachu and Slowbro were in front of the Viridian pokemon centre.
However Ash was too lightheaded to notice any of that as he began to retch, his head was pounding. The pain, the pain was unbearable.
All of sudden it disappeared, and Ash felt like something was snatched away from him, but at the same time something was given to him as well.
Odd, must have been a side effect of the teleportation- speaking of which Ash was now aware of the fact that the slowbro that dropped him here had gone away. He didn't even get to say a proper thank you to it. Ah well, he could say it the next time he saw the dopey beast.
Only one thought remained in his mind after this event. The lights he had seen helped him make up his mind. He needed to get stronger, stronger than that slowbro at some point.
For now all he needed to do was defeat Bruce, for that he knew he would have to step up his training with his pokemon.
After all that is done he will find Bruce, and this time he will win and he will show Bruce the pain of taking away someone’s pokemon... even if only for a brief moment. But for now, he and his pokemon needed rest.
As Ash walked into the pokemon centre a thought snapped into his mind, this rage it was his… wasn't it?
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