[Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon. It really is that simple.
Rated PG for death and references to death.]
Once a Hero
“So different now from what it seemed/
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed…”
Les Miserables-“I Dreamed a Dream”
Part One of Three: Wanted-Ashura Satoshi Ketchum
The last rays of twilight stained the hills of Kanto a glorious red-gold. The towering snowcapped mountains mirrored the splendor of the sun’s departing beams, and the dense forests were ablaze in light, reddening foliage reflecting the sun’s magnificence all the better. Many a being stopped to gaze on the splendor of the scene, drinking in the beauty of their world.
That beauty was lost on one young man, however, who trudged through the tall grass just north of what had once been his hometown. He looked over his smoke-smudged shoulder at where his house had once been. Now, a massive blackened crater was all that remained of his childhood home. And so much more had been lost that night four months ago than just a building…
The youth
turned his eyes to a much more recent column of smoke. Another
mark on my record. Just my luck everyone
will think it’s a black one. But then,
no one understands me anymore, do they?
Two fluttering sheets of paper
caught his eye. They stood tacked on a
wooden signpost beside the road he himself had first walked not six years ago. A picture of a boy with zig-zag patterns on
strong-boned cheeks, raven-black hair and dark eyes stared at him from both
posters. The boy looked to be barely
fifteen in one, and closer to sixteen in the other, but both wore a too-small
short-sleeved blue jacket with a white collar and gold buttons, a black T-shirt
beneath them, and a red-white League cap over the tousled hair. The young man’s breath caught as he saw the
black-tipped yellow ears of a Pikachu at the lowest edge of the weather-beaten
left poster, and he unconsciously reached for the empty space on his shoulder
where his Pikachu-his oldest friend-had
once ridden. A fresh pang of sorrow
twisted through him as he was once again reminded of his loss…not that he was
any stranger to sorrow. The caption on
the picture with Pikachu read Missing:
Ash Ketchum, 15,
The young man gave one last sorrowful glance at his old home, and then tore the Wanted poster from its mounting and stared into it, brushing his unkempt and filthy black hair out of his equally dark eyes as he did so. How, he asked himself, did Pokémon Master Ash Ketchum find himself here?
Well after
nightfall, a purple-backed tan-stomached Rattata sniffed a balled-up wad of
paper along the path between
That sign
was far from the only one with either or both rewards for the former Master
posted. One, bearing only the Wanted
poster, stood outside the small mountain hamlet known as
“It never gets any easier, does it, Brock?” she said sadly to the man, who didn’t even look at her. “Seeing him like that.”
“No, Misty, it doesn’t,” he replied, finally looking away from the picture and at his old friend. She wore a jacket with matching leggings, colored with sky-blue and navy-blue sections that complemented her cerulean eyes wonderfully. But, despite his natural impulse to chase after attractive young women, Misty’s appearance barely even registered with him. “I still can’t believe that someone like Ash could have done the things he did.”
Misty looked at the picture herself, long-forgotten feelings for the boy she had once travelled with stirring beneath her sadness. “I don’t know, Brock…do you think there’s anything left of the boy we knew?”
Brock knew-always had known-how Misty felt about their old friend, so he took a moment to think about his reply. “I don’t know either, Mist,” he finally answered, using the most affectionate version of her name without realizing. “I’d like to think so, but…I just don’t know.” Tears welled up in the corners of his perpetually-squinted eyes. “I just don’t know.”
A flock of Noctowl flapped overhead, their mournful hoots echoing the emotions of the two humans beneath them.
Elites Benito and Adolf looked down at their black uniform boots as they came up to the ornately jeweled doorway. Being summoned to the Boss’s chamber after a fiasco was one of the world’s most certain predictors of a long and exceptionally unhealthy life. “Perhaps it vould haff been better if der Ketchum kid had killed us too,” Adolf suggested to his partner in his guttural accent. Benito merely nodded, his long flaxen hair gliding as he did so. Neither man wanted to touch the door, until a voice rang out through it.
“If you two are quite finished malingering?” it said, much calmer than the words suggested. The two agents blanched, as the only time the Boss was more dangerous than when he was raving was when he was icily calm. But they dared not deny a direct command from this distance.
“Yes, sir,” Benito said in a hesitant but lyrical voice as he tentatively pulled the door open.
The Boss was clad in his customary red silken business suit, and his dark brown hair was slicked back. Even now, though, even in his most secure hideout, his features were hidden in shadow while lights blared at the two Elites.
“So, we’ve lost another bunker to Ketchum’s efforts. And you two survived unscathed while almost fifty operatives of lower rank have been either killed or hospitalized? Explain that to me.” The voice was lethally cold under a veneer of sophistication, and the agents were under no illusions that a “right answer” existed.
“It vas der Ketchum kid, Herr Kommandant,” Adolf finally offered, nervously patting his short brown hair into its characteristic style, almost covering one eye while slicked away from everywhere else. “None of our agents haff managed to stop him yet.” That was true enough, even if it was a lame excuse. Since Ketchum’s mother’s death, nearly two dozen Team Rocket bastions had vanished from the face of the earth. And always, always, the Elite agents or Executives assigned to oversee the facilities had survived...to face the wrath of their own leader. And they always knew why they managed to “escape,” too.
“Indeed,” the Boss finally replied after digesting the statement. “And had you taken all of the necessary precautions?”
“We had, sir,” Benito supplied. “Three twelve-man watches, with six Intermediates on round-the-clock watch over the fuel core our scientists were working on.”
“And no one entered without clearance?” the Boss inquired. Both agents shook their heads.
“No, Herr Kommandant,” Adolf answered. The Boss leaned back in his Arcanine-leather chair thoughtfully.
“This is getting worse than I predicted. How he managed to reach us with the number of people looking for him and the pictures I’ve had posted…” he murmured to himself. Several minutes passed, with Adolf and Benito growing more nervous by the second while the Boss pondered the situation in silence. “You two,” he finally addressed his whimpering subordinates, “you can go.” A tinge of what might charitably have been called warmth crept into his tone, and the agents looked at one another hopefully. “I have far more…deserving candidates for punishment, and, trust me, it will be a fitting one. They made this mess for the Organization, and now they will have their chance to clean it up.” He gestured at the door, and the room was empty and sealed off within a second. The suited man smiled like a Sharpedo, the corners of his mouth curling upwards to reveal sharp, perfect teeth. He pressed the base’s intercom button.
“Agents Butch and Cassidy, report to my office. Now.” His voice was blizzard-cold on the last word, and his tone remained lethally calm throughout the summons. Three floors away, agents Butch and Cassidy began pelting through the hallways…as far away from the Boss’s chamber as they could get.
“You have to help us!” Cassidy cried to the two unusually-dressed Intermediate agents who sat at a circular table in their common room holding a hand of cards. Her long blond ponytails and triangular purple earrings slapped the back of her head as she came to a stop and doubled over, panting for breath. The cream-furred Meowth sitting at the table, who held a hand of his own, glanced up over the cards at the newcomers. His oblong gold head-crest charm glinted in the dim light as he turned.
“Well, look what da Poijan dragged in,” he drawled in near-flawless human speech. This unique feature singularly failed to impress anyone in the room, all of them having grown accustomed to it over the years.
“Cassidy, I’m surprised,” a woman with long, curving red hair said primly without looking away from her cards. Her green spherical earrings were oddly luminescent in the half-light, although her deep blue eyes were hidden behind the hand. “I never thought I would see you with your hair out of place.” Her voice carried evident relish in even so slight an insult.
“Not funny, Jessie!” Butch grated through his panting breaths. “You heard the announcement! The Boss’s gonna fry us!” The blue-haired man opposite Jessie at the table winced at the gravelly voice of the Elite.
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with bungled capture attempts using borrowed Pokémon, would it, Botch?” he asked archly, emerald eyes glinting evilly. “By the way, Jess, there’s no way that Blastoise of yours will survive my Raichu next turn,” he said, indicating the Pokémon images on the cards face-up before him as he returned his attention to more important things than Butch’s imminent immolation.
The green-haired Elite’s expression darkened with anger. “It’s Butch, James!” he screamed. “Why can’t anyone ever get it right?” Both Intermediates and Meowth burst out laughing at his outburst, especially given the situation.
Neither Elite saw any humor. “You owe us your help!” Cassidy yelled at the cackling trio. “After all, it was your idiot Weezing that put the Ketchum house into orbit!” she blared, conveniently forgetting that the Boss had personally ordered that she use the reacquired gas-filled Pokémon.
James stopped laughing suddenly. “Maybe that’ll teach you not to steal from a thief, Cassidy.” Neither Intermediate was particularly sympathetic towards their black-clad supplicants.
“Besides, by dat reasonin’, dese two owe me about nine lifetimes of help!” Meowth chortled. Jessie and James glared playfully at him while the two Elites bristled.
“Are you really going to sit around and watch the Boss kill us?” Butch implored, most of the words getting lost in his harsh voice.
“No, they aren’t,” a far colder and smoother voice said from behind them.
The Intermediates got to their feet and saluted, Meowth glowering at the indifferent Persian walking just behind the Boss. “Sir!” they called in perfect unison.
“If only you three could be so
precise in the field,” the Boss sighed.
“Butch, Cassidy, despite disobeying my orders by hiding from me,” he
raised his right hand languidly to forestall any protests, “I will not have you liquidated. If,”
his voice turned even colder, “you can fix
your mistake in a way that will bring some profit to the Organization.” Butch and Cassidy shrunk back, attempting to
hide in each other’s arms as they realized what was coming. “Capture Ashura Satoshi Ketchum alive, turn
him in to the
“Y-y-yes, Sir!” Cassidy whimpered.
“Clear, Sir!” Butch grated. Even the Boss winced at the harsh voice.
“Now get on with it!” he ordered, sweeping his still-extended arm to the door. The Elites practically set a land-speed record vacating the common room. The Boss turned his gaze to the Intermediates. “Team Jessie James, you are now back on active duty. The assignment has changed only slightly. Track Ketchum just as you have for years, and make certain that he is captured.” The Boss made as if to leave, but then caught himself. “And notice, I didn’t say that Butch and Cassidy had to be the ones to capture him.” With that, he strode out of the room, the Persian following him closely.
“Active duty again…” James murmured dreamily.
“Back out in the world!” Jessie cried in ecstasy.
“And huntin’ a vicious killer? I t’ought youse two had more sense dan dis,” Meowth said bluntly, snapping his companions out of their fantasies. “Ash ain’t da same anymore!
“But,” he continued, a smirk crossing his feline features, “we know two who might be.”
Misty looked up from the table at
Ash’s house. “This is really impressive,
Mrs. Ketchum,” she said in thanks to her hostess. Deliah Ketchum smiled sweetly and shrugged,
embarrassed to take credit for anything.
Saliva was already streaming from both corners of Brock’s mouth as he
eyed row after row of steaming platters arrayed to entertain practically all of
Ash was still outside, relaxing from his recent Battle Frontier expedition, and Misty felt a powerful urge to join him. But the promise of food beckoned to her, and she was certain that her old friend would be inside shortly, answering as ever the call of his stomach. A smile split her face at the thought.
That smile vanished in less than a second at the sound of breaking glass upstairs.
“Where are you, Pikachu?” a soft female voice crooned, tinted with cruelty.
Misty held a finger to her lips and gestured at Brock. He wiped the drool from his mouth and drew his Onix’s red-white spherical Poké ball as he heard the noise too. The two young gym leaders padded quietly upstairs. They threw Ash’s door open wide and looked into…an empty room. The window was open but there was no sign of broken glass, or any living creature. Nothing in the room was moving, save the thick blue curtains which waved in the breeze. The two checked the remaining rooms, but none of them showed signs of intrusion. From Mrs. Ketchum’s window, Misty could see Ash walking calmly back towards the house from the sea cliffs, Pikachu riding on his shoulder as usual. The dark-haired boy was wearing the clothes that had served him throughout his Kanto and Johto travels while his industrious mother tended to his more recent outfit. There was nothing at all, save the voice she had heard, to suggest anything out of the ordinary.
Guess I imagined the whole thing, she thought. But, as she looked at Brock, as she saw the matching doubts on his face, she realized that there was still something wrong. If only she could put her finger on it…
Then the first shrieks echoed from the dining room, with an aged but strong male voice calling “Everybody out!” Thick, choking smog billowed up the stairs, staining the once-spotless walls as it rose. Misty and Brock covered their mouths and rushed down the stairs as fast as possible in the blinding cloud. They tumbled out of the open door, coughing painfully and gasping for breath, and found themselves in a heap along with the Oak family and several other guests.
“Where’s Deliah?” Professor Samuel Oak asked, his voice-the one which had called the order-hoarse from the smoke.
“I’ll get her,” his brown-haired grandson Gary offered, reaching for his prized Umbreon’s Poké ball. But he noticed a flurry of motion and hesitated.
“Pikachu!” Ash’s voice rang out
clear and strong, full of confidence.
“Find who the smoke is coming from and take them down!” The yellow-brown electric mouse Pokémon
rocketed through the open door and the sounds of a scuffle inside could be
heard. What might have been the voice of
a Weezing croaked out through the general confusion. Then, Pikachu’s unmistakable battle cry rang
out through the door, a loud “
And then the world exploded.
The gas ignited, the blast lifting
the house off the ground before casually tearing it to shreds and flinging the
splinters across the once-tranquil countryside.
Ash collapsed to his knees, tears he could not shed gathering in his
eyes. When he got back to his feet he dashed away, making for the woods, shrieking
out “Mom!” and “Pikachu!” in despair. No
one answered his cries. And when he
reached the forest’s edge, he turned, ever so slightly, and Misty saw his face,
once-gentle eyes hardened by grief and rage.
Just before he vanished from sight, he turned his face to a
smoke-stained flame-reddened sky and let out a soul-tearing cry,
“Pikachu!” And then, as she, Brock, and
Misty opened her eyes and stared
into that same face, looking down at her from a Wanted poster atop a hill
outside of
“Where are you, Ash?” she asked softly of no one in particular. Brock lay in his sleeping bag beside her, snoring raucously.
“We was hopin’ you’d be able to help us answer dat question,” a familiar voice said out of the bushes.
“Not now, Meowth,” the girl said as her legendarily volcanic temper began to surface through her mourning. She didn’t even look away from the poster as she named the unseen annoyance. “I am not in the mood to listen to your stupid motto.”
“Then you don’t have to,” Jessie soothed from another bush. “We want to help you find the twer…I mean Ash.”
Misty turned to face the source of the voice, her face glowing red with fury. “Why should I trust you two? You’re the ones who drove him to this! You took Pikachu away from him, and his mom, and now you want me to believe you’re going to help? Just out of the goodness of your greedy money-grubbing shallow little hearts?” Brock twitched at the sudden rush of noise and slowly began to wake up, his snoring subsiding into blessed silence. From her cover, Jessie winced at Misty’s painfully accurate description of the trio.
“Well, you said she’d be the same, Meowth,” James murmured from a nearby tree.
“How right I was,” the cat Pokémon answered mournfully. “Listen, Misty, we wanna show how sorry we are about dat night. It wasn’t even us, but we still wanna make it up t’ ya. We wanna bring da kid back to ya.”
Misty refused to show any sign of hope or acceptance, but the red gradually receded from her cheeks. All three Rocket agents exhaled in relief as the young woman’s rage visibly dissipated.
Brock was fully awake by the time Misty’s coloring had returned to its normal lightly-tanned shade. Jessie, James, and Meowth quickly filled him in on the situation.
“Mist,” he said finally, “do you think they could actually be telling the truth?”
Jesse grumbled. “Of course we are! Why else would we not say the motto?”
“Think about it, Mist,” Brock half-pleaded. “These three followed us everywhere we went. Do you honestly think there’s a chance they can’t find Ash?”
“Also,” James said, deciding to risk a half-truth, “we came because the Boss sent Butch and Cassidy out to bring him in, and we want to get him back before they do.”
Misty was finally nodding. “All right. But if you try anything suspicious-” she tapped her Poké balls meaningfully “-you will regret it.”
“Don’t worry, girl,” Jessie counseled. “We want to get him back as badly as you do.”
A dull flash of light attracted Misty’s attention, and she saw a small black sphere spiral through the air to land with unerring precision at the foot of James’s tree.
“Dat looks like a…” Meowth began before the woods split apart in a colossal fireball. The three Rockets spun through the air, trailing smoke, as they screamed their traditional “Looks like we’re blasting off again!” Their plaintive cries quickly slipped out of audibility and both Misty and Brock looked hard into the fire in search of its author. They caught a glimpse of a slim running form, silhouetted momentarily against the flames, before it vanished.
“I think we know where Ash is,” Brock said darkly, doing little to lighten Misty’s spirits.
The young man who had thrown the explosive wiped his hands, looking at the lighter patches of skin where he had once worn fingerless gloves. He knew the Rockets he had just attacked, from the endless harassment he had endured from them during his youth-youth, he thought, looking down at his teenaged form from eyes far older, now that’s a concept-and knew the innocence and basic kindness of the would-be “criminals.” But, they were Rockets still, and so he had attacked. Perhaps some hidden instinct had led him to select a low-yield charge so as not to seriously injure the trio. Nevertheless, he had seen the three Rockets talking with the two humans he thought he would have been able to trust, talking about “bringing him in,” and his rage flared up beyond even the intensity that had become normal for him.
So,
Misty and Brock have betrayed me too.
They seemed so sincere when they tried to follow me the night of the disaster,
but now I see how true they really are. No one can be trusted, then. He thought of the Pokémon who had once accompanied
him, but who had abandoned him as he devoted himself more and more to his sole
remaining purpose. Not even Pokémon will understand.
The young man again ran his hand through the empty space where his
oldest companion had once ridden. Is this my punishment for caring about
things? To see all my friendships wither
away and the people I love die? What did
I do to deserve this? Oh, that’s right…I
let them all down.
Forgive
me, Pikachu…if you can.
Butch and Cassidy looked up at the sound of something whistling through the air. They barely had time to move before Jessie, James, and Meowth crashed down on top of them. Despite the incredible force of the impact, all of those involved managed to quickly, if not quietly, pick themselves up.
“First day back on the job and you three get launched just as hard as ever,” Cassidy said with a tinkling laugh, the desperation of the night before completely forgotten. “Next thing you know, you’ll be telling us you met all three of the kids who used to do this to you daily.”
“Well, actually, Cassidy…” James began.
“…You’re scarily right,” Jessie finished for him. “We went to recruit the other two we used to chase to help us find the twerp, and then we got blown up.”
“And I’m pretty soitain who did dat to us,” Meowth finished.
“About how far away was this?” Cassidy demanded.
“First hill south of Pewter, along the road. You can see the smoke from here.” Jessie put just the right amount of contempt into the second sentence to provoke a reaction from Cassidy, and the two erstwhile allies set to pummeling one another.
Butch, James, and Meowth looked at the two scuffling women, and then very carefully started to edge away in the direction of the column of smoke.
“Now, if I were a wildly
destructive grief-maddened fifteen-year-old boy, where would I go next?” Misty
asked herself as she and Brock picked over breakfast in the
“A Team Rocket base? He’s always been careful to hit just the
Rockets,” Brock suggested. “It was just
an accident he caught a
“And we find Team Rocket how?” Misty demanded hotly. “It’s not like they have big signs over their bases saying ‘We’re here, come get us!’”
Brock held up his hands, palms towards the young woman. “Hey, Misty, it was just an idea…”
“And not a very good one!” she snapped, before pausing and reconsidering. “I’m sorry, Brock. I know you’re trying to help. But unless we know how he’s finding the Rockets, it won’t work.”
“And with him, it’s probably just blind luck.” Brock returned Misty’s questioning glare. “Hey, it’s always worked for him before! And he couldn’t read a map to save his life. But I think there’s another way we could predict where he’s going. Nurse Joy!” he called, and the red-haired practitioner strode over to him. Brock’s eyes lit up. “Oh light of my existence, oh-ow!” he exclaimed as Misty grabbed his left ear and tugged. “That hurts!”
“Ask her what you were going to, and not anything relating to a date,” Misty warned him before releasing the ear. The nurse rolled her eyes skyward. After all, Brock ran the gym in this city, and she had had years to grow accustomed to his tendencies.
“Ah, Nurse Joy, could you get us a map of the Kanto region and something to mark it with?”
“Certainly,” she agreed quickly and departed in an unseemly hurry, eliciting a snort of laughter from Misty. Brock, of course, took no notice, merely sighing sadly as the most recent object of his affections departed.
About a minute later, a male attendant returned with the paper map and a red marker. Brock looked disappointed, but nonetheless he picked up the marker and began marking locations on the map, seemingly at random.
“These are the places where Ash has been blamed for something,” he responded to Misty’s confused look. “Now, including the thing this morning, they’ve all been inside this circle. He finished dotting the map and drew a figure vaguely reminiscent of a circle through the outermost points. “Now, notice the center…”
“
“Hmm…could be,” Brock mused. “That point looks like the old water mill. Or what’s left of it, after Ash blew it up trying to supercharge Pikachu while he was going for my badge.”
“Do you think Team Rocket could have set up there?”
“I think it’s worth a look, Misty,” Brock answered. “Let’s go see.”
But before they could move, a plume of smoke erupted from the mountains…from the location of the old water mill.
“I think…we were right,” Misty said, her voice small. She marked another point on the map.
The radio box on Butch’s left hip squawked for attention. “What?” he grated.
Then his tone changed abruptly. “What? Where? The water mill…I see. So that’s what he was after here. All right, we’re moving.” He clicked the machine off and turned to his allies. “The kid’s just blown up our installation at the Pewter City Mill. If we move fast, we can catch him. It’s only about ten minutes away. Come on!” All of his companions had stuffed their fingers in their ears in search of relief from his voice, but they followed his directions nonetheless. But by the time they got to the blast site, a granite-walled canyon that had a large blackened bowl carved out of one end, there was no sign of anyone.
Or was there?
“Look, tracks!” Meowth called. He sniffed the ground. “Smells like the twoip mixed with gunpowdah…which I guess makes sense.” He scampered along on all fours, seeking other clues. “Looks like da kid’s runnin’ back south in a hurry. Almost dead on towards Viridian.” The cat Pokémon looked up from his search. “Da Boss ain’t gonna like dis…”
The Team Rocket agents immediately turned around and started running south, Meowth planting his paws in each of the footprints, while Butch reached for his radio once again. Noticing this, his companions increased their speed even further. He grunted a laugh at this. At least my voice is good for something…
“Officer Jenny, what have you found?” Brock demanded of the tall blue-haired policewoman overseeing the investigation. “Tell me, Officer!” he repeated, grabbing her uniform collar. Somewhat disturbed, she shoved him away.
“Well, the Growlithe unit is sniffing around for any tracks the bomber,” she was careful not to name who they all knew was responsible, “might have left. We’ve also found six Team Rocket personnel with moderate injuries. They’ve been shipped off to the Center back in town. It doesn’t look like there was anyone else, so the bomber didn’t add any more murders to his record.” A red-black striped Growlithe came up to her. “What is it, Growlithe?” she asked, concern tingeing her voice. The doglike Pokémon yipped at her, indicating the edge of the trees to the south with its stubby black nose. “To the south?” Jenny said questioningly. The Pokémon nodded sharply in confirmation. “Let’s see what they’ve found,” she told the two gym leaders. They nodded and run up the crater towards the forest’s edge.
“I don’t understand,” Jenny said as she examined the fresh prints in the dirt. “These look like Rocket uniform boot prints and a Meowth’s paws. Four humans…two each male and female, I’d say. But why would the Rockets wreck their own base, or get out unharmed when all of their others were hurt?” Brock’s jaw dropped open and what was visible of his eyes took on a familiar glazed tone as he listened to the glamorous officer analyze the traces. Misty saw this and stepped in.
“Wow, I’m amazed you could tell that much,” she praised, deftly cutting off Brock’s amorous outburst.
Jenny blushed in
embarrassment. “Well, it’s really
nothing. You see, I know the Rocket
uniform style from seeing the boots a few minutes ago, and there are two with
smooth square high heels, that are only worn by females…for obvious
reasons. And aside from the fact that
they headed off towards
“I think I can,” Misty said determinedly. “Brock, when Jessie and James approached us, didn’t they say that Butch and Cassidy were going after him too?” Jenny’s expression showed that no one needed to tell her explicitly who “he” was.
“Yeah, they did…do you think that when they got launched they landed near the other two?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Misty reminded him. “And they were flying this way…” She broke off as another Growlithe barked for attention, muzzle to the ground.
“New traces?” the policewoman asked. The Pokémon nodded its shaggy head, keeping its eyes fixed on the ground. Brock, Misty, and Jenny moved carefully over to the new traces. Underlying the Meowth prints were the trails of sneakers, trails Misty and Brock recognized…and they were heading south.
“So, he’s heading to Viridian after all,” Brock concluded.
“Well, don’t just stand there, Brock! We’ve got to follow him!” The two youthful friends darted swiftly and surely through the forest, Misty’s fear of insects forgotten in the face of her overwhelming need to find Ash.
As they ran through the woods, the redhead turned to her companion. “Brock, you’ve never asked why I’m doing this.”
“Didn’t need to, Mist,” he panted. “We’re friends. That’s all the reason I need.”
“Misty pursed her lips thoughtfully, temporarily inhaling through her nose. “But I thought everyone else thought I hated him. Or at least looked down on him.”
Brock barked out a laugh. “Come on, Misty. You weren’t ever like that except maybe at the beginning. Don’t try to fool anyone.”
“Who am I fooling?” she demanded angrily. “I’m doing this for me. It was my fault Team Rocket got inside. I could have stopped them, and I didn’t, and it got Pikachu and Mrs. Ketchum killed. I need to make it up to them, and saving Ash is just a happy bonus.”
“It sounds like you’re fooling yourself, Misty,” Brock answered as he stopped short. “And, about you feeling guilty, that’s just dumb and we all know that! Sure, if we,” he subtly emphasized the pronoun, “had been a bit better, we could’ve stopped it, but we weren’t. And just about anyone who was there is going to be thinking the same thing. But they don’t beat themselves up over it, and they don’t run across a continent looking for people they ‘don’t care about’ just to make themselves feel better. You’re not just doing it for your conscience. You’re doing it for him, and don’t pretend otherwise.”
There was very little conversation after that.
“You two clowns had better have a good idea about how to trap the kid if we’re going to be stuck in a crowded city without disguises,” Cassidy warned her “allies.”
“Don’t worry,” Jessie hissed back. “He’s obviously going after the Gym here. You know,” she went with mischievous glee on at the sight of Cassidy’s puzzled expression, “the one the Boss runs?” Cassidy’s jaw dropped open. “He invited us in to lead it for a day about five years ago.” Jessie punched the air in triumph as Cassidy took on a shade of green rarely seen in nature.
“So, Jess, does that mean that we’re going to stand guard at the Gym?” James asked, just as puzzled as the Elites.
“Exactly,” Jessie answered in a vicious hiss.
“Den what are ya waitin’ for? We need to move fast to beat the twoip!” The Rocket agents pelted down the road, all thoughts of secrecy abandoned. In their haste, they failed to notice the penetrating stare of a gaunt, sunken-eyed, black-haired teenager.
That’s
them off my trail, the youth thought.
Fortunately for me, they don’t
know about the Rocket operation underneath the
“Whew,” Misty sighed as she sat
down on a bench in the
“Me too,” Brock panted, lacking the air to say more. The sun had been beating down out of the clear blue sky all morning, and the heat had begun to tell when they left the comforting shade of the forest.
“Excuse me, young lady,” the Nurse
Joy of
Misty and Brock had barely entered the ward when the squealing of wheels and scampering of paws alerted them to an oncoming hospital bed being dragged along at incredible speeds by its “occupant.” Both trainers’ eyes opened wide as they recognized the Pokémon, and he seemed to have known them from the outset. “Pikachu!” he called jubilantly, the bed clattering along behind him, leashed by an I.V. line. “Pikachu!”
“Pikachu?” Misty asked, unable to believe her eyes. She laughed aloud as the burned and scarred furry form hit her like one of his famed thunderbolts, and he licked her ear furiously as she gathered him happily in her arms. Her joy faded when she realized who was missing. “Pikachu, where’s Ash?”
“Pikapi?” he asked worriedly, realizing that his trainer was not behind the two travelers.
“Well, it seems that Pikachu has recovered fairly well,” Nurse Joy said with a chuckle. “I think I can release him to you today, if he wants to go.” Then, her eyes narrowed. “Wait, did you say Ash? As in, Ashura Ketchum, the wanted man? Was he this Pokémon’s trainer?” Misty nodded. “I don’t understand,” Joy went on, her voice at once confused and uncharacteristically hate-filled. “I thought that if a Pokémon was raised by an evil trainer, it almost invariably turned evil itself, but Pikachu has been incredibly friendly.”
“Ash isn’t evil!” Misty roared at the nurse, who took several steps backwards in the face of the young woman’s wrath. But the look of rage faded from Misty’s face, to be replaced by sad contemplation. “At least, he wasn’t when he trained Pikachu. After his mother-”
At that moment, Brock was struck by inspiration and cut Misty off in mid-sentence. “Nurse Joy, when Pikachu was found, was there a woman anywhere near?” The nurse shook her head, habitual kindness replacing her momentary hostility.
“No. I’m sorry. The people who found Pikachu rushed him to the Center; they didn’t stop to look for anyone else.” She noticed how both young trainers’ eyes and faces fell. “How did this happen?” the nurse demanded. “I’ve never seen injuries this bad, not even at the League battles! Was it Ketchum’s fault?” She did not even think of other possibilities in her jump to accuse the known criminal.
Misty shook her head in vehement denial, orange hair whipping around.
“Well, it went like this…” Brock began hesitantly.
“A Team Rocket attack?” Nurse Joy asked disbelievingly. “And they didn’t learn from the time that one boy and his Pikachu blew this Center apart the same way…” Her voice trailed off as she realized. “Of course! I knew you and this Pokémon looked familiar! You were with the child when he brought it in the first time!”
“That’s right,” Misty replied. “Mistara Waterflower, from
“And the child-was that Ketchum?” the nurse’s antipathy for the boy had faded, replaced by a gradual understanding of what he had suffered. Her realization was confirmed by the two travelers. A faint clatter sounded in the air conditioner, but no one paid it any attention.
The youth slowly pried open a grate
in
He saw the first living being other than himself five minutes later, as the hum echoed louder. It was a large, burly man in black shirt, pants, boots, and cap, with a large red “R” proudly emblazoned on the shirt. In short, it was a typical Team Rocket grunt. The boy approached the guard slowly, hands disarmingly at his side.
“Hey, look!” he said as he noticed the youth, forgetting that there was no one around but the boy and himself. “It’s that kid!” He lunged forward, grabbing the dilapidated white collar of the boy’s blue jacket. He expected some resistance, and so was caught entirely by surprise when his “victim” leapt up with the pull, slamming his forehead into the grunt’s face, and following that with a swift strike to the now-exposed throat that snapped the man’s neck like a twig.
The youth expertly patted down the fallen body even before it had finished twitching, and removed four cylindrical objects and a small red switch that he carefully did not press. He then padded off down the shadowed hallway, proceeding always towards the source of the hum. The kill failed to faze him in the slightest. It was far from his first one, and not even his first hand-to-hand. Ironic, though, he thought, that the first life I took was the same one that I am now hunted for. I had no way of knowing that the security guard who tried to grab me in that facility was a policeman, and I didn’t even try to kill him. But after that, death just didn’t matter anymore. What else could I lose?
A large machine, crackling with electricity, dominated the final, well-lit room. The door was marked with a large red cross, but the people inside looked anything but benevolent. All of them were outfitted in Team Rocket-issue clothes, even down to insignias on the corners of lab coats. As the boy looked on, a flash of light illuminated the machine further, attracting the attention of every person in the room as a Poké ball materialized on a small pad. And so of them were looking in exactly the wrong direction to catch the youth tossing the four cylinders he had appropriated from the guard behind the machine. One technician looked up in irritation as the faint ping disrupted his work, but the small objects went unnoticed. The boy had already turned and re-entered the ventilation duct, taking care to replace the grating so as not to arouse suspicion. As he crawled through the shafts back to the surface, he noticed three familiar faces, one rounded and framed by orange hair, one with dark brown skin and squinted eyes, and a third soft and covered by a nurse’s cap. He forced his eyes away and continued, just missing the small yellow Pokémon just behind the trio.
The youth pried open another panel,
this time jumping out quickly. He landed
catlike outside of the building, his finger on the button before he even took
in his surroundings. Even when he
searched around himself, he only gave some attention to the brick wall and
collection of garbage behind the
No hesitation, he told himself sternly. The Rockets need to be stopped, and you need to stop them.
But what about my friends? that long-silent voice of innocence contested. The boy froze, his thumb resting on the switch.
They betrayed you, he reminded himself. They sided with evil, and this is their own fault.
No! I couldn’t…not to Misty!
You’re already an “enemy of the people.” What more could happen to you?
But why-why do I have to prove them right? And what about the other innocents? Nurse Joy, the trainers, the sick and hurt Pokémon?
When he could not answer his own question, the boy hurled aside the switch with a vehemence that surprised even him. He collapsed, shoulders shaking with exertion and the tears that would not flow.
Fully five minutes later, he returned to himself and began rummaging through his pockets in search of paper. A torn piece of a picture his mother had once taken of her son and his friends provided this. He no longer could bear to see the image, no longer could bear to face the memories it evoked. Instead, he picked up a still-sharp pencil from the rubbish heap near him and scrawled a quick message on the photo. He slowly crossed to the front of the Center, wedged the paper in the door, and departed. No one paid any attention to him.
“What’s this?” Nurse Joy asked as she opened the door for Misty, Brock, and Pikachu. A scrap of paper had drifted out of the door.
“Look below you?” Brock said dubiously as he tried to read the note. “I can barely make out the handwriting. If you can call it that,” he finished with a snort of laughter.
“What could it mean?” Joy wondered as she looked down at the cement. “I don’t see anything wrong.”
“Have you been having any trouble here lately? I mean, besides things blowing up in the countryside?” Misty inquired, a vague suspicion forming in her mind.
“Well, come to think of it,” Nurse Joy pondered, “our transporter system has been acting very strange. Poké balls have been diverted, or arrived empty, or things like that. Many of the trainers here are looking for their missing Pokémon, as a matter of fact.”
“Is there a basement or something to the Center?” Brock asked.
“Well…yes, there is. We had it put in when the hospital was rebuilt. It’s a backup treatment center.”
“With a transporter?” Misty demanded, seeing the same realization dawning on Brock’s face.
“Yes,” the nurse said. “Wait, you don’t think that-”
“That’s exactly what I think. Round up the trainers and head downstairs. That’s what whoever wrote the message wanted us to know.”
Pikachu clambered up on Misty’s shoulder and sniffed the paper. His ears shot bolt upright. “Pika!” he called urgently. “Pika, pikapi!”
“What is it, Pikachu?” Misty asked him. He pointed one dexterous paw-finger at the message. Tears rushed unbidden to Misty’s eyes as she took in the portion of the image still present on the scrap. Pikachu’s own head peeked out of Ash’s lean arms, in a fragment of a picture Misty remembered from the end of the Kanto league just five years before. A puff of wind caught the picture from between her fingers and carried it away. Misty made a grab for it, but it twisted out of her grasp. It spiraled through the air and was lost.
Lost, but not forgotten.
The youth sat at the edge of the
forest, his teeth gritted as he looked over the day’s actions. A playful breeze caught his hair, a sensation
he had once enjoyed. Now, though, it
brought him no pleasure. Nothing did. He felt no pride from his triumphs any longer,
but no regret came from ending lives.
There was no satisfaction from his act of mercy that afternoon, but no
pity for the dead guard. There was
nothing left within him. One of the news
broadcasts he had overheard had called him “soulless,” and he could not
disagree. My soul died with my mother and Pikachu. All I’m doing now is giving it an escort,
he thought grimly. Nothing I take from Team Rocket will make things right, though. I would give anything to hear Mom remind me
to “change my underwear every day” or be electrocuted by Pikachu one last time. I would give my life for that!
A fluttering white sliver darted through the air and struck his face softly. He peeled the paper off and turned it over in his hand. There, he saw the face of his beloved Pikachu, cradled in his arms, so long ago.
Pikachu, I will come to you. I promise. One last journey…and then we will be reunited.
He rose and began walking north, along the path he had first trodden five years before. The agony of his past shadowed him, held at bay only by the armor of ice he had created for himself.