Pikachu

By Fleet of the Wind

Warnings: Violence, Blood, character death, implied alcohol use, implied death of pokémon, author insanity and very extreme use of artistic license. This is not your pokémon world you all know and love, folks.

There was a Pikachu.

He was nothing special. He wasn't the Champion's pokémon, nor was he a shiny, nor was he the product of two particularly powerful or well-known pokémon's bond. He was a single pokémon among a thousand of his own kind, and a single of a species that was small and insignificant compared to the thousands of other, more powerful ones. However, while his existence was uninspiring, there was something about him that set him apart from the rest. His actions, while mostly unintentional and simplistic in the thought, did bring about something completely and utterly extraordinary.

Now, if it were possible for a pokémon to read, or write, or do anything of the like, this particular Pikachu would write a book. The contents would be short and probably scattered, and the trainer that eventually did come to help him in the end would probably have to edit it for inconstancies and errors.

Altogether, this book would only be three chapters long.

Pokémon, and the regions of the world of Nintendo it consumed, was not the child's game most people thought of it as. It was dangerous, it was violent, the system was abused, and people and pokémon died everyday because of it. However, on the opposite side of it, while dangerous, while violent, the game, the act, of pokémon, if done right, was rewarding, powerful, and moving like very few other lives could claim. More often than not, tragedy, darkness, and violence, came together with the powerful moments of victory to form something real.

One such time happened as this.

There was a Pikachu. He didn't have a name beyond that, nor did he ever get one. It was common practice to keep your pokémon named after their species, a practice that came from the desire to keep the relationship between a trainer and their pokémon as distant as they could (for, more often than not, the dangers of a pokémon battle took a pokémon before old age did). He was born in Viridian Forest in the region of Kanto and remained there with his small family until he decided to stray too far outside the boundaries of the section of the forest his family called safe and was caught by a trainer.

Let me take a moment to explain to you the nature of pokémon and such for a moment. Trainers catch pokémon using small ball like machines called pokéballs to captures various pokémon. Once caught in a pokéball, a pokémon cannot escape unless released by someone (though some pokémon have revealed the ability to break free of their pokéballs under strange circumstances). There are different strengths to different kinds of pokéballs, and there are also other techniques to catch a pokémon without a pokéball, but I will spare you the details and simply say that in this particular case, our Pikachu here was caught with a pokéball and unable to escape.

Now. Some trainers prefer to keep the pokémon they catch for their own, and use them to train for battles (which can earn them recognition through these systematic tournaments or gyms, or simply experience for both the trainer and the pokémon) or contests or other forms of powess or style. Some pokémon are caught for food—now, don't get all teary eyed over that poor Miltank or that over there caught, you didn't seem too remorseful eating that hamburger yesterday—and others are caught for working on jobs, lifting heavy things, pulling carts, working in advertisements, pets, all sorts of things. Others are caught for studies, or for breeding.

Some, like our Pikachu here, are caught to be sold.

Pikachu would be packed into a crate with fifty other pokémon, among hundreds of other crates with the same insides and shipped around the world. Eventually, his crate would be sold to a Game Corner Casino in the Sinnoh Region, where he would spend the next two years in a back room, let out once a day for a meal with the other twenty-or-so pokémon trapped with him, maybe more if there was an interested customer. It was a tiring system, one not entirely legal considering the circumstances, but one he had very little choice in the matter about.

Finally, someone let it slip about that little back room in that small little shady Game-Corner, and the police were quickly informed. Pikachu ended up seeing his first glimpse of daylight for the first time in two years a little under a week later, when the police forcibly took possession of the pokémon up for sale in the back room.

The problem then came to be what exactly to do with the sudden possession of twenty pokémon, several of whom had been trapped in the back of a storage room for a long while. Several of the pokémon actually had trainers looking for them—a digital scan revealing their ID code assigned to every registered pokémon—and those were returned. Others were released back into the wild, those who were mostly freshly caught and native to a nearby area. This narrowed it down to about six or so pokémon left, two of which were given to the local breeding center who had put out a wanted ad for that particular species of pokémon, and another two were adopted by a local professor in charge giving out starters for new trainers due to their low experience status.

That, of course, left our Pikachu.

He had been let free to roam about the station, like the other pokémon had while homes had been found for them. He enjoyed the station, even if he was a bit wary of the pokémon—mostly Growlithe and other aggressive types—and their trainers who worked there. They seemed friendly enough though, and they weren't overly restraining about where he walked and slept. One by one, the pokémon he'd been living with for the past few years started to disappear, off to new homes. It was fine. He was happy for them, he really was, if a bit put off by the sudden loneliness he felt even out of isolation.

He wondered when the humans would send him away to, as the days past, and hoped, at least, that it'd be better than the last home he had.

"You sure the professor can't take him too?" One of the police-officers, a young woman with curly red hair, asked the other, leaning back in her chair. Pikachu remained silent and still under the woman's desk, where he'd been dozing before the two had walked into the office

"Too high level," her partner shook her head. "He needs pokémon that new kids can handle, you know?"

"He seems docile enough," the red-head's voice was uncertain.

The other laughed, swiveling around in his chair. "Hah. You weren't actually on the task force sent to retrieve them, were you?"

"No," Red shook her head, shifting slightly in the chair. "I was on the McKinney case. Why?"

"He flipped out when we started removing the pokémon from the room, back at the Casino," he heard the man explain. "You know that Rick's at home right now?"

"Yeah?"

"His hand got burnt pretty bad. Can't handle a pokéball. That little guy, burnt his hand. No remorse. Shocked him real good."

He could hear Red's soft sigh of frustration, even as quiet as it was. "Rick's a jerk and an idiot," she scoffed. "Personally, he had it coming. There's nothing wrong with a little protectiveness." She paused, looking up towards the other man. "What's his stats?"

The guy shrugged. "The scans said somewhere around level thirty. Good special attack power."

There was a surprised silence, Pikachu staring with half closed eyes at the woman's legs, who had gone very still all of a sudden. "Really?" she asked quietly, after a moment. "Not bad. Could be a lot worse, considering where he was found. Why wasn't he bought earlier on?"

The guy leaned back in his swivel chair, crossing his arms. "The owner said that he was too… unpredictable. Biting the hands that fed him, you know? It got him out of being sold for a long while—and the one time he did the owner said he was returned for behavioral problems. No respect for trainers."

The woman sighed again. "I bet they didn't give him a good reason to," she muttered, almost too quiet for him to make out. There was another pause, before Red straightened in her chair. "I like electric types," she said simply. "I'll take him."

The man narrowed his eyes. "I thought you were into fire types."

"What?" Red sounded indignant. "I can't like two different types?"

"You barely even know anything about this one," her partner accused. "You hadn't even known about him until you walked into the station this morning."

"So?"

The man fixed her with a piecing look. "You can't adopt every little sob-story pokémon that stumbles across your path, Hoyle."

"Why not?" the woman asked hotly. "You know what happens to the pokémon we can't find homes for."

There was a beat.

"Yes," the man sighed. "I do. But that is no excuse for taking on a practically wild pokémon with behavioral issues that you know nothing about."

"Twelve-year olds do it everyday," Hoyle snapped.

"Which is an entirely different situation and you know it!"

Pikachu stared blankly in the space beyond the desk, blinking slowly, ears pricked. He could smell the tension radiating off both the two humans, and he knew, somehow, that the reason for their argument went deeper than he probably realized. He shifted, burying his nose into his thick paws, as the shadow of Hoyle in front of him slowly relaxed.

"Yes," she said, finally. "I do. But I'd still like to try, and, ultimately, I hold rank over you. You can't order me not to try."

There was a long suffering sigh. "No," the man muttered, exasperated. "I guess I can't."

Hoyle came for him soon after. The red-haired woman spent a long while searching through the police-station for him the day after he overheard her conversation between herself and her partner, before finally searching through her own office and spotting him under the desk.

The woman crouched in front of the space between the underside of the desk and the outside, hands on her knees, looking at him with a head tilted to the side as if sizing him up. They stared at each other for a long moment, Pikachu rolling off his back up into a sitting position to stretch, not letting their gaze break with a hint of defiance in his eyes. So she wanted to try then? Good luck. The last three people who'd tried all had given up. All of them had left. This one would be no different.

"Have you been under there this whole time?" Hoyle asked, after a long moment.

He didn't dignify her with a response, ears twitching.

The woman sighed, brushing a red curl behind her ears. "Yesterday too, then?"

Did she really think that was going to work? Humans could be so stupid.

"I'll take that as I yes," Hoyle said dryly, giving him a look after his lack of response. "So you know that I'm going to take you home with me then?"

He sniffed. "Pika," he ventured after a moment, and the woman's face shifted ever so slightly.

"C'mon then," she said quietly, extending a hand, and reaching her other to the back of her uniform's pocket. "I got the papers and everything all done. You were remarkably easy to get the rights to. I have your pokéball right—"

The change in the atmosphere was instantaneous, and Pikachu lifted his teeth in the hint of a snarl, hair on the back of his legs bristling. A shadow passed over Hoyle's eyes, gaze darkening, but instead of pulling the machine out anyways, the woman let her hand return back to her knee empty. "No pokéball," she nodded shortly, voice quiet. "Alright. That's fine. We can do that. You must be hungry then, if you haven't been in your pokéball since the Casino. Are you hungry?"

Pikachu slowly shook his head, nose twitching in suspicion. The police-officers had always let their pokémon out during the lunch breaks, and he'd been able to share with a few of their own. It'd been a while ago though, and his stomach was hollow, but not painfully so. He could go a while longer.

"Well," Hoyle mused, after a moment, "I'm hungry, actually. I skipped breakfast thing morning, and, well, actually, dinner last night too—I tend to do that, sorry, you'll just have to remind me anytime you get hungry—and since it's close to lunch time, I'm sure boss won't miss us if we skip out a little for this little place I know of that serves great food. You want to try it?"

The woman was looking at him expectantly, blue-eyes soft, and with a jolt he realized that she was actually waiting for his reply, for his okay. He hesitated. He was a little hungry, perhaps, and, really, if she wasn't going to lock him up, what was the harm? Slowly, the Pikachu offered a nod, and Hoyle's smile grew to a grin.

"Awesome," she said happily. "You're going to love this place."

"Moooooooooooooooom," Hoyle called, kicking open the swinging patio door to a small white-house on the outskirts of Hearthome city. "Are you home?"

The two had taken Hoyle's car from the station. The drive had taken a good twenty-minutes for them to get out of the busy downtown and out to the countryside, but it was worth it, to stand up on the back of his paws and gaze out the windows as the city flew by and melted into forest. It took them roughly ten minutes more for them to reach the place Hoyle had been taking them, and, to be honest, he was a little surprised when the pulled off the dirt road and into a secluded country house in the middle of nowhere. There had been pokémon everywhere; it looked like a farm, with Rapidash and Ponyta grazing in the fields beyond white fences, and flocks of Spearow turning heads as they drove past and towards the house.

Hoyle had supplied a key from her car's pockets, and had unlocked the door to the creaking old white house, swinging the patio door open and calling out for her mom. Pikachu tentatively followed, skittering on light feet behind her and through the door as well, taking in the sights and sounds of the old house.

There was the sound of a door opening a floor above them, and seconds later the sounds of footsteps. Mrs. Hoyle, a small older lady with the same dark-red hair, if a little grayed, as her daughter, emerged around the corner and began walking down the stairs, beaming.

"Erika!" She called, and Hoyle turned around, small smile on her face. The two met at the bottom of the stair, chattering excitedly, while Pikachu lingered awkwardly behind at the front of the door. Erika, as was now her new first name, towered over her smaller mother by nearly a head, but neither seemed bothered by the fact, instead talking in tones almost too low for him to make out, but unimportant enough for him to block out anyways.

Finally, the two broke apart enough to reveal the small Pikachu lingering in the door, and Mrs. Hoyle's face lit up once again, making his fur prickle in anticipation. "And who is this?" the older woman asked, turning to her daughter.

"This is—" Erika hesitated, obviously wondering if the Pikachu she had recently acquired had a nickname he was used to, before recovering with a small smile, "—a new friend. The police rescued him along with some others from a Casino downtown. They didn't have a place for him, so…"

"Ah," Mrs. Hoyle leaned down, crouching at a level with him, making the Pikachu bristle with irritation somewhat, he wasn't a child. "Hello there, Pikachu. Are you hungry? I have something in the oven right now that will be done in a just a little bit, if you'd like some."

He, under the gaze of the two women, slowly, hesitantly nodded. It's what they had come here for after all.

An hour roughly later, Pikachu was poking at some food on a bowl on the floor that smelled almost suspiciously good, while Erika and her mother talked at the kitchen table about happening events in the family almost somberly.

"Hey."

Pikachu looked up, startled, from poking at the dish. In the doorway was a Growlithe, a bit smaller than the ones he had seen at the police station, but a Growlithe all the same. The fire-pokémon trotted forward, nodding at the dish between his paws. "Go ahead," he said, sounding slightly amused, "I can vouch that no poison pokémon has touched it."

"I knew that," he replied, slightly defensive, "I'm just—just—"

"S'alright," the pokémon yawned, flopping himself down over the wooden tiles a few feet away, blinking at him lazily over cream-colored paws. "You don't have to explain. You're Erika's new pokémon?"

Pikachu shot an uncertain glance towards the red-haired woman. "I guess."

"You guess?" the growlithe sounded amused again. "Well, what is it? Yes or no?"

"Yes," the Pikachu snapped, tone a bit harsher than he had intended. "She has my pokéball, so, yes, technically, she is my trainer."

The growlithe's ears twitched. "Okay. Fine. Sorry. Didn't mean to touch a sore spot. What's your name?"

The pokémon lowered his head, snapping up at the food to buy some time. "Don't have one," he said finally, after swallowing.

"Wild then?" the fire-type mused. "Makes sense. I thought they gave proper names out too, though."

"I didn't stick around long enough to have a sibling and need one," he replied truthfully.

"Ah," the pokémon blinked once, before adding, as an afterthought, "I'm Archie."

Pikachu gave him a dip of the head in acknowledgement, before flicking his ears towards the table where the two humans sat. "Which one do you belong to?"

"Mmm," Archie huffed, "technicaaaaaally… none of them. But, I guess, if I have to say, I probably belong to the youngest—she's away on her journey right now—" he added, at Pikachu's surprised glance, "but I'm not registered with a pokéball right now, so I'm technically wild."

"Wild?" he asked, "If you're here, why don't they catch you?"

"I was born here," Archie explained with a flick of his tail, "this place is a breeding farm. Noel, the younger sister, was the main breeder involved in the process, so I'm technically hers. However, pokéballs are expensive, and I was expected to be sold off to a trainer earlier on, so they just never got around to it. So, I stay."

"Why?" Pikachu asked, bewildered.

"It's home," Archie replied simply. "I think maybe one day I'd like to go off with Noel on her journey, whenever she comes back again, or maybe just stay around here and guard the place. I thought maybe I'd to work with Erika on the police-force…" he shot a lazy glance towards the woman's direction, "it's good work what she does. But now she has you."

"I've known her for maybe a day now," he replied skeptically. "She might be into the idea now, but a week from now? A month from now?"

Archie gave a bark of laughter. "Good luck shaking her off," he snorted. "Hoyle's are persistent to the point of fault."

"Yeah?" Pikachu straightened, setting his shoulders. "Well, so am I."

Stubborn was more like it.

"Now," Erika said slowly, pawing through the contents of her tablet, chewing on her lower lip, "these stat scans say you're around the thirty-first level for a Pikachu of your typical size and weight. You must've been in quite a few battles before we picked you up, huh?" she asked, giving him a hopeful glance.

Pikachu hummed noncommittally.

Erika gave a sigh, glancing back down at the tablet. "Well, you did something right, and we can work on that. While you're a decent level, most criminals will have pawned pokémon around the same level of experience that you do—and we need to be better. Your special attack power is fantastic, which is awesome considering most guys tend to pick the brawniest pokémon they can, ignoring the fact that most of the time their special defense is quiet low, which we can easily exploit." The girl paused, eyes skimming a new piece of information of his registration, before nodding. "It says here you know electro-ball. Can you show me that on this dummy here?"

Pikachu spared a glance at the human-like dummy positioned up at the back of the training room.

Twenty-minutes later, Francis (the guy from the office yesterday, whose name he finally learned) had his water-pokémon finally finish putting out the fire, said partner giving the muted Erika a pat on the back as he walked back off towards the office.

The red-head stared blankly at the soldering remains of the dummy, standing perfectly still. Pikachu subtly walked up behind her, sitting down silently next to her, dwarfed by her tall figure.

"Was that really necessary?"

"…pika."

A sigh. "Okay. Fine. Let's. Let's just try another move then—one—one less—less—has less potential to potentially get me fired, yeah?"

Time passed.

"Okay. Okay. That was a smaller fire that time. That's good, I, I guess. Let's—okay. You know what? Let's start with something smaller. I'll be right back."

Time passed.

Erika bent down, extending her clenched fist towards the electric pokémon, who sniffed at it suspiciously. "This is a technique my sister Noel uses," she said quietly, voice a little wary, "when she's training new pokémon. It's a matter of team-work and accuracy." Slowly, the girl opened her hands to reveal a thin brass ring, perhaps the size of her closed hand. "This will conduct electricity very well," Erika said, "shocks will ping off this thing based on the velocity and speed of how fast it's rotating. If I throw it, if you hit it, and hit it in the right spot, it can do some serious, and accurate, damage. Would you like to try?"

A month passed.

It was after the twenty-fifth time that Erika had tried to put him through one of their training sessions that she seemed to break down. If she could even get him to stand up and try to hit the ring, if he even bothered to hit it when he did try, if it did ping off the ring at the right spot, the results were often disastrous and inaccurate. He could tell that the police-officer was getting more and more frustrated as time went on, even if her calm demeanor was hard to crack, and she seemed near tears by the end of the last one.

He felt a little bad.

Just a little.

It wasn't her fault, after all, that he was locked up. It wasn't her fault that he was so bitter; he was only directing it at her. She'd been nothing but nice to him, if a little overbearing, and, well, he couldn't help but feel the slightest bit of guilt after she told him to 'go do whatever you obviously want to be doing more than being here' after their last one.

So he slid under her desk, quelled the guilt, and fell asleep.

Of course, since fate works in funny ways, Erika slipped into her office a few minutes later, sliding down at her desk with a shallow sigh. He didn't make any move to make his presence known, silently curled up at her feet, waiting and watching for her to accidently bump him with her feet and discover him.

Luckily, before she could, Francis walked in.

"Hoyle," the guy said, sounding distracted as he walked in, the sound of rustling papers making it apparent that he was holding some sort of folder and sifting through it as he spoke. "We got a case. Some kid in—are you alright?"

"Fine," Erika said tersely. "Continue."

"Kid, I've known you for four years now. Some—"

"I'm fine," the girl snapped, jerking a hand up in a gesture for the files. "Continue."

"…there's been a robbery to the plant. Some kid saw people still moving around in there. They've called for the police."

Erika stood abruptly, reaching into her drawer and removed something, a sound he reconized as the sliding of metal on wood. "When do we leave?"

"In two. I'll pull the car around front."

"Good." A pause, then, "bring your Luxray too."

"Why?"

"I'll be using her, alright?" Erika snapped. "You said two minutes, go."

Erika, rescuing a late-night employee the robbers had held hostage, got shot.

He personally didn't get to hear about it until Francis returned to the station late at night, sleeves of his uniform flecked with barely noticeable red, and he skittered silently under another desk near the conversation to hear the whole thing.

"Erika's always been one to take stupid risks for a cause but that one was the worst I've even seen her take!" Francis snarled to some unfortunate intern who had kindly (and mistakenly) offered to lend an ear. "God. Jesus. She's going to get herself killed one of these days without a proper pokémon team to defend herself with!"

The intern said something unintelligible, with a gentle tone.

"I know there's always a risk but there could've been another freaking way. She wasn't focused, and I can't even begin to tell you why—"

Pikachu slunk away.

When Mrs. Hoyle took him with her to go visit Erika in the hospital, something changed.

He jumped onto the bed and at the redhead's feet without a second glance to the woman herself, who had seemed surprised that he had even come along. He slept there, obnoxiously pinning her feet to the bed, and glared daggers at any of the nurses who came along to shoo him away.

When he left the next morning when Mrs. Hoyle came back again, he left a brass-gold ring at the foot of the bed—one that Erika wouldn't find for hours later, when she painstakingly tried to stand and it clattered to the floor. She would pick it up, delicately, and then look to the foot of the bed where the imprint of a small mouse-pokémon still could be seen.

She smiled.

The first chapter of Pikachu's short and altogether metaphorical book would be called Opening Up.

Months past and turned into a year. Erika healed, slowly, and eventually returned back to her position on the force. Soon after, Francis had her benched for unnecessary (and courageous) risks and acts of stupidity. She told him that she really didn't mind and that 'They'll be begging for me to come back soon enough.'

They spent the time between Erika's city apartment, and her family's country home. He found out that Erika had two gym badges, and he was not her only pokémon—there were ghosts of the past and a baby Ponyta born a few months before she'd taken him on in her name. He and Archie became friends, the best friend Pikachu could ever really admit to having, and he also got to finally meet Erika's younger (and seemingly fabled) younger sister Noel, who promptly swept in, created a happy sort of chaos, and whirled out, taking the ecstatic growlithe with her. He also got to meet Erika's four older brothers, all of whom had bright red hair and tall supermodel like bodies—except for one short and blonde one, but he had always been a black-mareep, Erika told him.

They became something sort of like friends.

A year turned into two. Erika was called back to the force. Pikachu mastered the art of the bronze-rings. They entered a contest, just for fun. They the won the contest. They had a feast. They entered another more important contest. They lost. Erika abused her twenty-first birthday rights. She let Pikachu have a few sips too.

They caught bad-guys. They lost bad-guys. Pikachu turned six, Erika turned twenty-three. Erika got shot again. Francis practically finished the job for the guy. Pikachu finished Francis's job and got the actual guy. Archie and Noel came back. Archie evolved. Archie was freaking huge. Erika bought a house. Erika and Pikachu moved into her house. Erica and Pikachu burned down their house. Erika and Pikachu decided to stick with apartments. Erika's Ponyta grew up. Ponyta got the nickname Daze. Pikachu got jealous of Daze. Erika rolled her eyes. They had a group hug.

Erika fell in love.

Francis nailed the cheating bastard in the jaw. Pikachu crunched the cheating bastard's leg. The cheating bastard still has a limp.

Erika and Pikachu saved the world. Well, the city. The world was kinda Noel's thing, as Pikachu bewilderedly began to learn. It felt like the whole world. Erika gave up trying to fend Pikachu off her bed. Erika bought a new bed. Pikachu decided he liked this new bed better. Erika decided she liked her old bed better. Yay compromise. Erika fell in love again. Erika and Francis got engaged. Pikachu approved. Erika and Francis bought a house. Erika, Francis, and Pikachu moved into the house. Life was good. Life was great.

Erika turned twenty-five. Pikachu turned eight.

They found a nine-hundredth species of pokémon. Some group called Team Plasma got their asses handed to them. Noel and Archie saved the word again. Erika and Pikachu saved the city again. Erika was promoted to police-chief. Pikachu reached level fifty.

Crime rates increased. Extremist groups became more… extreme.

The world began to darken.

The region of Sinnoh passed under a shadow,

The second chapter of Pikachu's book would be called Falling Down.

"Jubilife's been taken."

Erika's head snapped up. "What?" she snapped, hand still laying splayed out over the map of Sinnoh on the conference room table. "But we sent that group of Bird trainers last week, and Darrol was leading them. They—"

"—were caught too," Daniel finished, looking wary. "Elizabeth got away. She arrived here on base less than five minutes ago and told us what happened."

Erika seemed to reel at the new information, and Pikachu gently pressed up against her leg, grounding her. "Okay," she said, distantly. "Okay. How bad did she—"

"The X. Group has entire control over the city," Daniel reported. "Nearly every television and radio station in the region has been shut down. Only Sunnyshore's small channel is still up, and they're broadcasting news we knew ages ago."

"The league's helping them out then?" Erika said, relaxing slightly.

"Yes," Daniel hesitated wincing. "In my professional opinion, it's the only reason they haven't been taken yet."

The woman let out a long huffing sigh, running a hand back through her curls. "Okay. Okay. Any word from Snowpoint?"

The aid shook his head. "Nothing. A large snowstorm has pretty much cut off all communication."

Erika gave a long humorless laugh. "Since when isn't a snowstorm blocking off communication? What about Rogers? I sent him to Snowpoint last week as well. Nothing?"

"Nothing," Daniel said regretfully.

Erika scowled, hiding her worry, and crossed off Jubilife on her map. "So, what? It's us, Sunnyshore, and possibly Snowpoint—and we don't know what the hell is happening up there—against the world?"

"And Solaceon Town," the young man added helpfully.

Solaceon Town was taken two days later.

"So, what exactly do they want?" Erika was asking, hands massaging her temples.

Elizabeth, the lone escapee from the bird-team that had flown to Jubilife a week ago, shifted uncomfortably. "It's hard to say," she said slowly. "I was only there for a short period of time, but—it seems like a lot of pillaging."

"So, what, a bunch of crooks got together for the sole purpose of doing as they please when they please?" Erika asked dryly. "No. No there's more."

"They're very organized," Elizabeth said haltingly. "After the initial attacks though, they seem to lose rank. I think they were told that once the city was taken, they're free to do what they want, within reason, while the head-guys do something behind the curtain."

"And it doesn't seem to be a hit and go plan?" Erika pressed, leaning forward in her chair.

Elizabeth shook her head, brushing her thin brown hair behind her face and uncrossing her arms. "No. No. if they wanted something, they wouldn't hold on to every city. There's something more that we're missing. A bigger plot." The girl's distant blue eyes settled back to Erika's own. "They are looking for something, whether power or something deeper, and they are coming here. They won't leave Hearthome untouched. You have to be ready."

They spent the next two days in preparation. Sunnyshore was lost, and Snowpoint was still distantly out of reach. There was no word from the other regions, nor word from Erika's family, who Erika had been trying so hard the past few weeks to find.

The X. Group had come out of nowhere. No one knew what they wanted, nor what they were planning, but cities and towns fell one by one to their organized and powerful ranks. Erika had taken charge, as a police-chief, of the gradually spreading panic. Hearthome had held out this long against initial attacks, and against the fear-inspiring silence and unsettling lack of activity after.

Erika seemed to hold up well against the threat of the imminent and likely unhappy unknown. She kept the city's moral together, and the defense up. She made good plans against the threat of attack, and patrols and watchmen. She had tried to help other cities in the initial stages, when the region first entered panic mode, and had successful helped defend Solaceon Town for a very long while. She sent out pleas for help to the nearby regions, the closest being Hoenn to the South, but with the radio and news stations down, the other nations were truly blind to the going ons in the Sinnoh region and probably had no idea how bad the situation was.

Erika seemed convinced that her sister had something to do with it, and had even gone out alone (with Daze, actually, who had long since evolved into a Rapidash and remained one of the fastest land-dwelling species on the planet) to look for her. No one had seen neither head or tail of the younger Hoyle, like many other people who had gone missing in the cities under X. rule, and the best Erika could do was try to hold out against them, and prepare for the inevitable attack.

When the attack came, and it did, the city held out for a week under siege before the group broke in through the defensive walls raised by the ground-pokémon, the barrage of the bird pokémon, and the final defenses of the fire to take control.

Erika knew what happened to the resistance, leaders, trainers, and spies, all of them. She stayed anyways. Pikachu stayed right beside her.

It ultimately came down to a big battle in the street.

It lasted hours.

Erika spun, orders flying from her lips and Pikachu leaping to obey them. She flung out circles of brass high into the air, and bolts of lightning flew to them like Mothim to a flame. Policemen, trainers, all of them were falling around them, dropping one by one under gunfire and onslaughts of enemy pokémon moves. Eventually, the duo found themselves in the dead of night lit only by fire-pokémon flames, trapped on all sides with grunts pressing in on every side and not a friendly face in sight. They managed to do some massive damage, together, alone before it all went wrong.

They fell.

Pikachu turned half a second too late, and the Scyther of a grunt caught him across the chest and sent him slamming into the ground with a wound he could not, would not, be able to stand up from. He went tumbling across the earth, smearing his fur along the path of dirt and blood with a cry. The pain was intense, a blow that would normally end a battle, if this were one, and Pikachu could really do nothing but lie there, trying to catch his breath, when—

Erika, unprotected, gave a cry.

Pikachu, turned his head and watched as the Scyther unleashed a swipe of his razor-sharp claws, catching her across the back and sending her falling forward in a spray of blood, face ashen white, onto her hands and knees. Pikachu waited, helpless, horrified and screaming inside, for the Scyther to deliver the killing blow.

It didn't come.

Maybe that initial attack was a death sentence enough. Or maybe it was something else entirely.

A man stepped forward from the crowd in front of them, behind them, on all sides of them, in a perfectly unsoiled black suit, strangely dark hair cascading over his black eyes. A Magmortar, one Pikachu had seen tossing trainers left and right earlier on in the battle, followed him closely behind, the cannon on his arm glowing. He made no move to help the girl, who was spitting blood onto the ground before her with trembling arms, and Pikachu knew that this was no trainer on their side.

"…Erika Hoyle…" the man said slowly, voice loud and quiet at the same time in the huge night sky. A smirk grew across his face. "…leader… protector… final challenger…. down on her knees."

So he was their challenger.

Erika lifted her chin, pushed herself back up to sit on her heels, and flipped him off with both hands.

The scyther, at a jerk of his hand, shot out a blade like claw at lightning speed, blade slicing her across the back. The red-head let out a pained, choked sound, before falling to elbows, and, from there, flat on the ground.

"…mmm, better," the man mused, stepping a few paces forward. Erika coughed, a wet horrible sound that made Pikachu flinch, even from his weakened spot on the ground. "I suppose you'd like to know who I am."

"I… know who… you are," Erika spat into the ground.

"Really?" the man sounded amused. "Do tell."

"Freaking armatures… idiots… think that destruction…" Erika wheezed "will help their cause… but really… you just want to watch the world burn."

The man shrugged. "Fair enough assessment. I am Mr. X."

"So… predictable…"

"And yet," the man said, voice raising an octave, spinning around on his heel and walking away, "here you are. Dead."

"D-dying," Erika corrected, smiling with too many teeth.

The man turned, baring his teeth at her. "Same difference. I do wish I could leave you here, lying bleeding out on the ground, but then that would just… be uncivil. I do have to entertain my…. audience." He jerked his hand with a half shrug toward a huddled crowd of surviving resistance, a mix of trainers and police combined. "An example." He was stepping forward again, reaching a hand into the cover of his nice jacket and retrieving a simple looking gun, deceivingly small.

No.

Not like this.

Not ever like this.

She deserved better.

They both did.

Pikachu stood.

His legs shook, and his body screamed, but he stood. He rose from the ground on trembling legs, with ears flat and paws trying and failing to find purchase on the ground to gather into a run, so he merely walked. Staggered.

He had caught the attention of everyone in the crowd though, all who had gone silent looking towards him. His chest heaved for air, and blood trickled down from a cut on his head into his eye, but he just walked. Walked. Walked.

Walked and placed himself in between X and his trainer.

His trainer.

He was scared. Terrified, actually, because now a gun was pointed at him, rather than at someone else, but he did stand with a chin raised ever so slightly and paws planted firmly on the cobble-stone below.

X's eyebrows shot up to his hairline, arm pulling back and up the hand with the hand on his gun. "Interesting," he said.

His trainer laughed, choking. "One las…t time… then… Pikachu?"

Pikachu gave one, barely noticeable, nod, and that's when it happened.

Erika, on her last breath, threw the little bronze circle in her blood-stained hand, high into the air. He stepped forward, bundling up his screaming, shaking muscles, fur crackling with neon blue sparks. His paws left the stone ground, front paws first, leaping high, back paws last, tiny claws curling and pushing in attempt to get himself as high as he could.

The bronze circle rotated, glinting, shining gold in the dark night off the shadows of the fire pokémon manes. X's Magmortar, standing protectively behind his trainer, lowered the cannon on his arm. It began to glow.

A shadow passed over the sky. Erika's arm dropped. Pikachu hurtled his tail around, spinning, slowly, slowly, high, higher, highest—

"I admire… your bravery… young one…" the Hand said. "There are very few…. In the universe… who would've stood back up…."

Pikachu watched the scene go by, seconds, movements, time passing achingly slow. He turned to the floating white hand, hovering beside him, surprised to find himself able to move at normal speed when everything else seemed so slow. Why are you showing me this? He asked silently.

It was strange, watching himself, like on the human television. Everything passed so slowly in front of his eyes, sparks from the battle around littering the scene like slow blinking fire-flies, the achingly slow fade of the light in Erika's eyes, the way he watched a copy of himself, a picture, spin, slowly, fur beginning to glow in the beginnings of one final thunderbolt. It was strange, for himself to watch the scene he knew so well and yet not at all, like a spectator from the stands—only these stands only had two viewers, a giant floating white hand, and a very small, very brave, Pikachu.

"To help you…" came the whispered response, which was everywhere and only here all at once.

Help me with what?

He saw his own mouth open in a cry, the way his fur shone like a flare of a candle, a burst of energy, as the lightning began to flow from his skin to collide with the brass circle.

"Letting go."

The same time the lightning hit X's chest, the same time he went flying backwards with the light fading from his eyes, Magmortar's cannon released something bright, powerful, red, and all-together fatal.

What is this? He asked.

He watched the beam fly.

"This… young friend…. is how you died."

He watched the beam engulf him, hit him square in the side. He watched himself be sent flying. He watched a brass ring hit the earth.

Oh.

"You would not move on…. by yourself… you were too… stubborn."

Time sped up. He saw himself hit the ground. Seconds later, a girl with fiery-red hair and a young face slid to a halt in front of the crowd on a powerful, familiar, Arcanine.

A flash of a memory, long ago.

"Hoyle's are persistent to the point of fault."

"Yeah? Well, so am I."

Oh.

"So I am here. To help you move on."

But. What about them?

The girl dismounted Archie, running over to Erika's fallen form on the ground. Erika stirred, just long enough to hold her younger sister's hand.

"Erika Hoyle died for a cause on September 16th, 2008 in the battleground streets of Hearthome, Sinnoh."

Just long enough for her to die.

"Her team of two pokémon, a Pikachu and a Rapidash, was halved when the Pikachu sacrificed his own life so that he could end the life of another and save countless more."

A limping Rapidash lowered its head over the prone form of a Pikachu, nudging it softly.

What happened to her—Daze?

"Daze went back to live on the Hoyle farm, where she became the mother of two, and lived a long and happy life."

Francis, with the sleeves of his jacket flecked in blood, pushed to the front of the crowd.

And him?

Francis fell to his knees.

"Francis Boyd married a bird-trainer by the name of Elizabeth Burke on June 3rd, 2019. They had three children together, and Francis died in action in the year 2025."

And everyone else?

"At the death of their leader, the X-Team lacked the strategic mind and order they needed to persist. After some continuous rebellion, they were expelled from Sinnoh three months later."

That's… he watched, as the crowd of trainers began to fight back, viciously, against their captors. …not what I asked.

"They… moved on."

The brass circle, which had been rolling on the cobble-stone road, finally rattled to a halt.

Good.

The sun broke over the horizon.

"Do you think you can let go of all this now? Now that you've seen it all again?"

How could he?

I'm… not sure, he thought, watching the scene in front of him like a dying fire.

"There's a place…. A place for people… and pokémon… like you… a place I've created to help those let go… to move on… as best they can. I can take you there."

Will I see others I know there?

"You will know some… some more than others…"

Erika?

"I'm afraid not."

But it will it help… this burning feeling inside him, …all this…?

"I am most certain of it."

Pikachu turned, looking one final time at the chaotic world below him. He wanted to stay. He… really wanted to stay… but he knew that was not possible. Not then. Maybe… learning how to let go would be a good thing.

Okay. Okay.

They vanished in the light of the fast approaching dawn, none having noticed their presence nor will they ever do so. They left behind a street cluttered with wreckage, and a continuing battle that one side would eventually lose to. They left behind the form of a human girl with red hair, lying broken on the ground, and just to her left the huddle shape a very small, very brave, and all together extraordinary mouse pokémon.

Pikachu began (finished?) his final chapter.

He decided to call it Letting Go.

AN: Well, that's it. ^^ I hope you enjoyed, and I hope you were too repelled/confused by my style/interpretation. I thought it'd be cool to have Master Hand take characters from death and give them a second chance, you know? One last fight. I felt that the ending was a bit rushed, and the whole thing a bit long, but I wanted to develop the characters without going over 8k, so yay, there's the result.

Thanks to CEObrainz for the invitation and I hope you enjoyed!

*salutes*

-Fleet