The Story of Flash: The Lone Pikachu

I remember the day I changed very clearly. It was as if it happened yesterday. I 
remember it but after so many years I am not sure  if I remember it correctly 
but this is what I remember....

  As my pokeball opened,I looked at my surrounding and all I could see was the 
bright lights of the stadium. I looked around me some more and I could see no 
one but I could here them chanting my name continuously.

  Their voice filled my head. All I couold hear was their persistent cries of " 
Flash, Flashh, Flash." I was getting excited . My heart was thumping to the 
rhythm of their voices. I synchronised my breathing to match the vibrations that  
I could feel through my tale. The more they chanted the more their voice filled 
my head. I focused on my opponent,  a ferocious Gyarados.

 The Gyarados with its razor sharp teeth and wide menacing mouth was preparing 
for a hyper beam. I couldn't hear my trainers commands above the constant cheers 
of the manical pokefans. I wonder if we were seriously going to win this battle.
I wasn't fighting caterpies or wurmples anymore  and I knew it.

 I was in the big league now. I would fight highly trained pokemon with fury in 
their eyes. I would have to literally have to fight my way to the top.  I wasn't 
the reigning champion but the Gyarados in front of me had been in the league 
three times before. I was just a little pikachu who was caught when I was 
sleeping under a tree.

 Gyardos could barely control his enthusiasm. He could smell my fear and wanted 
to capitlaise on it . He wasnte to savour teh moment when the hyper beam hit me 
and  knocked my sorry pikachu behind out of the stadium. All he needed was 
sometime to recharge his energy- he had enjoy taking out my scyther friend who 
was sent out before me. I still couldn't hear or see my trainer.

 I decided to make up my onw mind on what my strategy would be but first I would 
need more power. I had to get more power. Next thing I knew I was withdrawn from 
the battle back into my pokeball. I had time to think. On the outside I heard 
Bayleef being attack  by an earth- shattering hyper beam. Bayleef was knocked 
out instantly. I didn't any experience points but I felt something coming on-  I 
needed more time.

 My trainer had few revives and revived my bayleef friend and threw in Combusken 
who was at half HP. Big mistake. On SUrf from the Gyarados and it was almost 
over. Combusken used a Blaze Kick but it wasn't very effective. As this occured 
I noticed that I was holding something.  It was a rare candy- just what I 
needed. I ate the rare candy and soon I felt a surge of power flow through my 
tiny pikachu body.

 I felt all my stats increase I grew another level. I wanted more power but this 
was not sufficient I needed more power still.  Suddenly I felt quite different- 
I was evolving?  I thought I could only evolve with a thunderstone? This 
couldn't be happening.

 I was evolving.  My deteremination to knock out the Gyarados had giving me the 
push I needed to evolve by myself.  I was no longer a pushover, I was a Raichu.

  My master threw me into the ring and I emerged with Hull HP and full PP. I had 
only one thing to give that Gyarados and that was my strongest, and longest 
THUNDER!!!!!!

 I soared through the air and I prepared myself.  Gyarados kept a close eye on 
me.  Small sparks began to form around  my electric sacs. I looked at the stars 
in the sky and I began to draw in all the electric energy around me. The 
electrifying enrgy of the crowd, the electric energy within me, the electricity  
powering the lights - all the electricity I wanted to have. I sucked in the 
energy and held it.

I looked at the Gyarados and I aimed.  Gyarados wasn't going to win this match. 
I was almost overflowing with power. Gyarados being water- flying was in for the 
shock of its life. Perhaps the dragon in it would help it out a little. It was 
at this moment - right before I  released y stored energy that I saw the 
weirdest thing. By the rim at the top of the stadium sat Moltres, Articuno, Ho- 
oh,  and Lugia.  It was then that I saw Zapdos weaving in and out of the air. I 
couldn't  hold teh energy in anymore and I released it.

 The beam of electricty was a bright blue. It was larger than anyting I had ever 
seen. It  spiralled towards the Gyarados- I aksed myself what  I had done. 
Gyarados was strong but it couldn't stand up to an attack of that magnitude. I 
wished I hadn't been so determined to win. Gyarados didn't deserve such a 
horribly large attack.  It was just a pokemon that had been trained to fight, 
just like me.  I wished I had never been consumed by the endless pursuit of 
power.

 Zapdos flowed slowly towards the beam and went right in front of it. With its 
wings spread out to its fullest, it absorded my attack with no problems. Only a 
little amount wasleft and this hit the Gyarados. Gyarados fainted instantly.

 I watched as Zapdos ascended back to the rim at the top of stadium. To join its 
fellow legendary birds. I suddenly got drained of my energy. I was de-evolving; 
even then my HP ws being lowered. I was falling and just as I was about to touch 
the ground I heard a voice:

 " The quest for power can only lead to one of two things: self-destruction or 
one attaining their ultimate power." said the voice," You, Flash will have to 
choose betwen  self -destruction or   attaining  the ultimate power that you can 
achieve."

 I choose to attain the ultimate power that I could achieve. I then dissapeared 
from the ring.  I left everything thing behind me.
I wondered what was going to happen to me. I then slowly blacked out.

 When I woke up I was on top of a high mountain overlooking a forest filled with 
pokemon. I felt different but I wasn't scared - it was like I evolved but at the 
same time I didn't evolve, I was still a pikachu  but my mind was open to 
various things. My senses were out of this world. I could see and hear 
everything that was going on in the forest. Every little dark rock was as clear 
as ever. I looked at my tail and ears and the tips had turned a bright blue and 
so was the tip of my nose.

 I guess I had become a legendary pikachu. I think thatis what I am but  I am 
still not sure even after so many years.

 Sometimes I sit by a stream or river or a path and  I wait to see if someday I 
might find my lost trainer. I see so many trainers filled with  dreams and goals 
but they are all filled with self- doubt and fear.  I realised that for some 
mystreious reason that when a trainer crossed my path, he or she left all the 
fear and self - doubt in the footprints in the soil. It was as if I had some 
mysterious power and I could take these things away but I wasn't sure becasue I 
rarely ever ran into any trainers.

 I also realised that I could never be caught mainly because  I still had  a 
trainer and I also could escape from the pokeballs without opening them.  This 
was my life. I traveLone Pikachu:

Perhaps it was the sheer charm of the pikachu that made it memorable.

 I remember walking back from the school one day. The sweet smell of the cream 
doughnut I just ate still linger across my lips. My heart was still thumping 
from the sprint I did when the school bell rang. It  felt good to know I was 
alive.

 The path was still as dusty as ever; leaving dust all over my feet. My white 
socks by now had taken a chocolate brown colour- much to my liking. The dust on 
this route was comfort to every trainer who walked it. On it lay the echoes of 
dreams that can only have once been possesions of an aspiring trainer.  I too 
left my mark, in the form of a solitary pair of footprints.

 The bite of the winter was a reminder of my hidden longing to see the flight of 
the articuno- but I was getting ahead of myself. Winter was always like this... 
like what you might ask... well it was like this.

  Kids would run around playing and screaming, watching the smoke rise from 
their mouths as the winter chill did its thing. Parents watched their children 
play and scream. I watched them play and scream. They all had their pokemon out 
of their pokeballs and boy was there variety. Eevee, ghastly, pikachus, 
caterpie- they all had a place in society and in their trainers hearts.

 I had been once like them- but that was so long ago I don't think I remember 
what it felt  like to be them. My smile was different because they smile out of 
happiness and I smile out of victory. My frown was different because they 
frowned out of sadness and I frowned out of loss. We were so different.

 It was whilst I remember my sad reminisce of a childhood that I saw something 
sitting alongside the path. It was a pikachu.

  I was first eager to determine whether it was wild or if it was lost. It had 
no reason to be  sitting along the path were  any aspiring trainer such as 
myself would catch it.  I told myself that it was asking for it and I threw an 
ultra ball at it.

The ball whirled through the air, spiralling free  from the contrains of time. 
In that moment  Time had no power, in that moment, it was only me, the ultra 
ball and the pikachu.

 My everything fell away for in that moment I was complete. I was nothing more 
or nothing less.  My dreams were mine and I  belonged to my dreams. The Pikachu 
didn't look at me during that moment.  It scared me. I had caught many pokemon 
before but in this pokemon there was no struggle, no fight;  had it too become 
one with itself in that moment?

 I caught the pikachu. I was not particularly thrilled or overjoyed but at the 
same time  I was not indifferent to the new found catch.

 I walked away from the spot; the moment was over.  I felt as if cold water was 
dripping off my back onto the dust path. I turned around fearing that something 
I needed had just slipped away from me. Something was wrong; things had changed. 
I was not dreaming; I was sure.

 My heart began pounding and breathing became hard. My eyes were out of focus, 
my hands were shaking; I was scared. It was then that I cried out in an attempt 
to regain control of myself.

 I regained control of myself within a few minutes.  I looked around and I saw 
no one around me. Everything was as it should be but I felt different. I had 
lost something that had been with me for a long time.

 The cold breeze taunted my coarse black hair. The sun was distant. I looked at 
my ultra ball. This pikachu had changed as much as I have. It is no longer a 
solitary being in the pokemon world but it was now one that has had myself as a 
trainer. It was a part of my arsenal of johto league pokemon. I had changed it's 
life forever. I smiled and began to walk away. Then I heard a little voice as if 
it was so far away that the human mind could never reach there even if 
travelling at the speed of thought. I turned around.

 It was standing in the path behind me, smiling a little pika smile. It waved 
its tiny paw at me and stuck it's chin in the air; its yellow ears were tipped 
backwards. If it was in the path then what was in my ultra ball I thought. I 
closed my eyes in an effort to understand what had just occured.

 Ten years later I am now walking down the very same path and  I am thinking to 
myself, perhaps it was the sheer charm of the pikachu that made it memorable or 
perhaps what made it memorable was the fact that in that moment  when  I caught 
the pikachu I believed I could be a master and now because of that pikachu I 
lost all self doubt and fear.

I now am a master.




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