AN: As of the time I started writing this up to the conclusion of the fight with Zapdos, it was probably before the Gou tries to catch a Zapdos episode.

As of the time I have finished writing this, it's probably been a year or more since then. So there might be a noticeable difference in my writing quality as I get back into writing fanfics now that I have a laptop and the site can't keep me from writing fanfics anymore since I'm not using my phone to do so. (There was some weirdness going on with me and the site back then, that might have been due to how the site works changing and I couldn't figure out how to work with it.)

More relevant to this fanfic series, I wrote a fanfic about Ash's Alola Rowlet you guys can check it out that's in response to the Legends Arceus Commercial the anime did for a four-part special. I don't think it's been getting as much attention due to me not using Ash's character tag for the stories summary, so it'd be nice if people would check it out and give it read to let me know if it's garbage or not.

The fanfic's called May The Best Rowlet Win, since I forgot to mention that earlier.

And I've rambled enough now, let's just get to the story. (Hopefully there are still people interested in reading these fanfics of mine.)

1! 2! 3! Let's Go!


Disclaimer: Not the owner of Pokemon or the anime. I just have the Let's Go Pikachu game where I caught Zapdos in that one. Fortunately, in a few weeks as of finishing writing this fanfic, I should have a Shiny Galarian Zapdos hopefully.


Route 10, Kanto Region. The Abandoned Power Plant: Zapdos's Chamber.

"Char! Char! Char! Char! Char! Char! CHAR!" Ash, Gou, Pikachu, Raboot, and the TRio heard all of a sudde. from a distance that was rapidly getting closer. The four of them to Gou's disbelief were about to partake in a Raid battle together to catch a Zapdos that Gou had tracked to a Power Plant east of Cerulean City.

Ash's dull surprise at the Zapdos being there kind of pissed Gou off since he had spent the previous night staying up till 2 in the morning looking up Zapdos sightings and unusual thunderstorms appearing out of nowhere throughout the Kanto and Johto regions so he could deduce where Zapdos would appear at next.

Ash's response to Gou's outrage at Ash being underwhelmed at how hard he worked to find Zapdos was that Gary had told him that Zapdos visits that Power Plant for some reason thrice a year. For Gary it's practically a tradition to swing by the Power Plant and try catching that Zapdos.

Heck it isn't even that big of a secret considering Gary told his gramps who told Professor Ivy who told Elm who told Birch who told Rowan who told the Professors Juniper who- (you get where I'm going with this. So let's skip ahead.)

Professor Cerise and Chloe's silence when Gou asked if he was the only one who didn't know Zapdos likes to hang at the Power Plant was painful for the boy to recieve.

Unbeknownst to him, the TRio who couldn't take their Bewear's hugs for much longer followed the boys back to Kanto and listened in on this conversation. They also were in the dark about how everyone and their mother knew where Zapdos likes to roost at.

The knowledge that he was in the same boat as the TRio when it came to not knowing things further depressed Gou when he found out after Ash convinced him they can still go to the Power Plant and try battling Zapdos and then discovered Team Rocket had decided to follow them after hearing Gou ramble on and on about Zapdos being there.

The plan was they'd work together to catch the Zapdos, but the boys knew the TRio are likely going to sabotage their efforts or turn on them the first chance they get and were proven right when the TRio decided upon Zapdos showing up, that Pikachu was the more worthwhile Pokémon to catch.

Something Gou found baffling, Zapdos found insulting, Pikachu felt pretty smug about, and Ash just facepalming wondering why he still hangs out with these idiots.

To everyone but Gou, Zapdos, and Raboot those Chars sounded familiar, and they'd be proven right as Ash's Charizard flew onto the scene his gaze fixed on Zapdos who gave the Fire/Flying-Type a dismissive look knowing it can wreck him easily with her lightning.

"Char." Charizard declared with a vicious smirk having looked forward to this moment for years.

Jessie and James gave Meowth a pointed look demanding a translation for what Charizard said.

"He just repeated "mine" over and over again." Meowth told them shrugging not mentioning how off his rocker the Twerp's Charizard sounded.

"Well you heard Charizard," Ash states confusing Gou and the TRio, "He called dibs on Zapdos."

"He can't just call dibs. This is a Raid Battle. We all work together. If he wants in, he can switch with Pikachu, but me and the idiots are part of this fight too-" Gou gets cut off as Charizard lands in front of Raboot and smirks viciously at the little rabbit who tenses up nervous.

"Char charizard." The not-actually-a-Dragon-Type tells Raboot before smacking him across the stomach with a Dragon Tail forcing Raboot back into his Pokéball and sending out Gou's Sobble who looks around confused before looking up to see a big scary Charizard smiling menacingly at him.

Then Sobble cries some more. (Hey, look! A new running gag.)

Gou quickly scans Raboot's Pokéball to see the only Pokémon he brought with him that wasn't weak to electric attacks got KOed by Charizard, who is now facing Zapdos who comments on how unnecessary Dragon Tail smacking the weird-looking Marill was, before looking to Ash pissed off, "Ash, what the frick?"

As Ash shrugs and repeats that Charizard called dibs, Meowth translates what Charizard said before knocking Raboot out of the fight was: Nothing personal kid.

Charizard responds to Zapdos's comment by saying and then having Meowth translate for the humans: Who gives a shit about the Galarian Bunnelby? You're opponent's me!

Zapdos replies that Charizard will probably go down after recieving just one Thunder from the Titan of Lightning.

Charizard scoffs and says that would only be the case if Zapdos was dealing with the average Charizard warrior before declaring he is not the average Charizard warrior. He is the Elite! The apex of his species! The prince of all Chari-

Zapdos used Thunder! It was Super Effective!

Gou deadpans at Ash and is about to comment on how anticlimactic that was before Charizard rose to his feet and knocked Zapdos to the ground with a Blaze boosted Fire Blast, a scowl upon his face.

"Char! Charizard char zard char!" Charizard growled out: As I was saying, you're not dealing with the average Charizard warrior anymore. I have become a Legend. I am the Legendary Super Chari-

Zapdos used Thunder! again... Whilst telling Charizard to stop talking and start fighting.

But Thunder wasn't very effective... Because Charizard tucked his head, folded his wings over his body, and used Steel Wing to mitigate most of the damage.

"Okay what?" Gou repeated mirroring exactly what Zapdos said, both of them thrown for a loop at how that attack barely slowed Charizard down.

Meowth translates what Charizard mumbled under his breath, which was: The Mouse and the Hoenn Bird are never going to let me hear the end of it that trick actually worked.

Pikachu nods his head grinning smug as Charizard lunged towards Zapdos and knocked it through a generator in the power plant with Dragon Tail causing an explosion that hid the two from everyone's sight.

It also caused the power in Cerulean City to go off for a few minutes before the backup generators the city has brought the electricity back on.

Fortunately, Ash and Gou won't be there to recieve the blame. Team Rocket will though.

"Why us?" The TRio suddenly calls out breaking the 4th wall confusing Ash and Gou before they hear Charizard yell out, "CHAR!"

Meowth hurriedly translates, "DODGE!" before the humans and their Pokémon get out of the way just in time to see Charizard chuck Zapdos through the back wall of the large chanber and to the outside of the plant.

Zapdos catches herself from falling into the river and flared her wings out before using Ancient Power creating a silver ball of energy in front of her beak which she launches at the Charizard barreling towards her.

The energy ball soon increases in size and becomes a silver boulder as it flies towards Charizard whose not deterred by the sight of an incoming attack that could likely knock him out of the fight. Instead of trying to dodge the move, Charizard who reaches out his claws and catches it before doing a spin in the air to hurls it back Zapdos's way who balks not expecting the fully evolved Starter to do something as crazy as try to catch it and actually succeed doing so.

Zapdos dodges out of the way at the last second, her late response to it coming back her way resulting in the boulder clipping her wing and detonating which knocks her to the ground below.

Zapdos glares tempestuously up at Charizard who's smirking down at her from the sky as she gets up from the crater she dug into the earth with her body.

With a murderous caw as the sky darkens and thunderclouds begins to roil above, Zapdos's form is shrouded in lightning now before she swings her wings forward and blasts up towards Charizard with a thunder crack accompanying her launch.

Charizard was about to meet her Wild Charge with what he planned to be an improvised Drill Run via using Steel Wing to perform a spin dive at her, but at Ash's command he dodges narrowly evading the attack trusting his Trainer's judgement as Ash trusts him to not need to command every move he makes in this fight..

As Zapdos shoots high into the sky and disappears into the storm clouds, Charizard looks to Ash and nods affirmative to Ash's question if he can pull off the poses for a certain Z-Move.

When the Electric Mouse had gotten back from Alola, some of the other members of the team had shown interest in pulling off those super attacks the Mouse could throw around now.

Charizard only really joined in because he figured he'd have an easier time replicating Drill Run from pulling off what is essentially a stronger Steel-Type version of the move.

If the Flame Pokémon had known the zap happy Electric-Type was going to go Lt. Surge on them to get the poses right, Charizard would have just tried his luck finding that Iris brat's Excadrill and learning the move from him.

Shaking his head to focus on the present, Charizard throws his arms together to make an X in front of his snout mirroring his Trainers movements as the Steelium Z on Ash's Z Ring sparks to life. Swinging his arms out and then downwards, Charizard and Ash then threw their fists forward in synchronicity; the left one crossed over the right one.

Finally, they pull their arms back to their chest and knocked their knuckles against each other, producing the sound of metal clanging against one other as the Trainer is enveloped in a silvery white aura before that aura transfers to and suffuses Charizard in its glow who throws a vicious grin up at Zapdos before he flares his wings outwards.

A second later Charizard is blasting up to Zapdos whose coming down to try landing another Wild Charge. The aura he's gained for the upcoming Z-Move giving increasing his speed to levels he'd likely only see if he sought out a Charizardite Y to Mega Evolve with.

As Charizard briged the gap between him and Zapdos, he starts spinning and spinning faster. The speed of his rotations increases more and more until he's became a spiraling orange drill that clashes with a seismic bang against Zapdos as sparks fly about from the point of contact between them.

The titan of lightning and the dragon of fire struggled against each other, shocking and then terrifying the Legendary Pokémon as Charizard starts driving her back whilst somehow increasing his rotation speed.

"GIGA..." Ash screams out (unaware somewhere in the vast multi-verse a Squirtle with a badass pair of sunglasses grins before he focuses back on making himself another one of his Squirtilite Mega Stones) as he bangs his fists together again producing another metallic clang as he drew forth and sent more power to Charizard's attack, "DRILL..."

Gou turns away from the clash going on in the heavens above as Charizard drives Zapdos back into the storm clouds, "Are you really making a Gurren Lagann reference right no-"

"BREAK!" Ash roars in sync with Charizard as Zapdos's Wild Charge ends, the Titan of Lightning cawing out a quick, "OH SHIT!" right before the attack launched her far into the distance and simultaneously dispersed the storm clouds.

"You get the feeling that should have been us?" James asked Jessie and Meowth as they watch Zapdos get carried into the distance until only a little twinkle in the sky is left.

Jessie and Meowth look to the most competent Trainer of their group unamused, "Don't even joke about that James."

Meowth nods stressing with the least competent Trainer of their trio, "I've been sent blastin off enough times in my life, thank you'se very much."

A Pika came from the Pokémon whose been the Three Stooges most frequent target for Pokénapping, it's owner disagreeing with Meowth's sentiment causing the three to slowly turn behind them with dread.

Pikachu stands ready, his cheeks sparking as he readies a Thunderbolt. It's simple pleasures in life like making these three scream in agony that gets him up in the morning, "Pika! Pika pika."

Meowth hurriedly waves his arms no and shakes his head left and right, "What!? Kidnap you'se!? Ya must be mistaken Pikachu ol pal, ol buddy, ol friend of mine."

Jessie and James quickly understanding what Meowth is saying join in and frantically explaining away their latest attempt to steal Pikachu today.

Gou glances back to see Pikachu's not buying Team Rocket's excuses as he charges up to which the TRio changes tactics to begging to not get Thunderbolt'd. Shrugging Gou looks back outside through the hole in the wall Charizard made with Zapdos's body earlier to see the Fire/Flying-Type swooping back down. The agonized screams of the TRio mere white noise to him after having heard it every other day in the roughly two months he's known Ash.

Charizard lands outside the plant and scans the skyline as his Trainer and the new kid following him around make their way back outside.

Charizard growls seeing a distant black and yellow shape approaching as his Trainer makes it outside then stops to follows where Charizard's gaze is going. Ash spares his Z-Ring a quick glance to check on the Steelium Z to see it's sporting a small crack in it now from having drawn too much power from it this time.

Ash'll send it to Kukui to see if it can be mended. He'd really rather not have to fight Hapu again to get a new one, given she'll likely be expecting the Soak trick he used last time to beat her Mudsdale. Perhaps he should consider having Pikachu learn a Grass-Type or Water-Type move. Pikachu can use Surf, right?

Ash doesn't give that any more thought as Zapdos lands, albeit crashes would likely be the more accurate term, in front of them and leers at Charizard before bowing her head as a sign of submission to the victor of this battle.

Grinning cheekily, Charizard throws his head back and let's loose a victory roar, releasing a Fire Blast as he does so whilst Gou arrives in time to see Zapdos turning to leave and find somewhere safe to lick its wounds and figure out how she'll explain to her siblings she got thrashed by some arrogant Charizard. Wait, didn't Articuno mention a few years back she was bested by a Charizard when she fought with that human, she'd taken a liking to? Albeit not enough of a liking to let herself caught by him.

Quickly fishing a Pokéball out of his pocket, Gou reels his arm back and tosses at the backside of the unsuspecting Legendary Bird's heads.

Only for a Fire Blast to intercept its flight and incinerate it until it is naught but molten slag.

Gou blinks giving Ash and Charizard a betrayed look whilst Zapdos glances behind her to see what happened only to note the slag on the ground that vaguely resembles a Pokéball and the look the human with the weird Marill is sending her previous opponent.

Mildly put off the child has the nerve to try and catch her when he's not the one to bring her to this state of weakness, Zapdos leaves and resolves to let her siblings and their Trio Master Lady Lugia know just what kind of human Lord Lugia's chosen has associated himself with presently.

If he intends to confine them in those accursed human-enslavement contraptions in the future, he better be ready to really work for it rather than expect they will just let themselves be caught like some lowly Pidgey.

Seriously, what Legendary let's themselves be caught without assessing the worth of the human catching them via a trial of some kind or a battle?

But back with Gou who's currently upset with Charizard, "What the heck!?"

"Char! Charizard, char char!" Charizard tells Gou off who doesn't quite get what he's saying and unfortunately there is no Meowth to translate for him.

"Charizard says if you want to catch Zapdos yourself, you should battle her yourself and defeat her. Piggybacking off of Charizard's win is kind of low." Ash informs Gou, fortunately he knows Charizard well enough to get what he's saying, "His words not mine."

Even if Ash does somewhat agree with Charizard, this whole Raid battle thing sounds a little screwy since it means someone whose not really a dedicated battler could just get 3 people who are good battlers to do the hard work for them in catching a powerful Pokémon, so all have they have to do is swoop in and catch that Pokémon and run off before their helpers realize they'd been used.

Maybe Ash misunderstood the explanation for Raid Battles that Gou gave him that time they fought that Giga Golurk together. How are these kinds of battles so popular in Galar if there's only 1 Pokémon to catch? Wouldn't that mean 3 people will be walking away from the battle with notohing despite their efforts?

The giant dark, storm cloud egg that Giga Golurk and Silver hopped out of was pretty cool.

Returning to the present situation to see Gou trying to argue with Charizard that he should have gotten to catch that Zapdos, Ash tries to defuse the situation before his newest friend gets a Flamethrower in the face from one of the first 6 Pokémon Ash has owned.

Sobble watches his Trainer and the big scary not-actually-a-Dragon argue tearful, before eventually the waterworks come and Sobble cries some more.


AN: Yeah, when I was writing this fanfic initially, I had been marathoning DBZA abridged and Vegeta's character on the show might have slipped into my writing and infected Charizard.

Oh well, the TRio's still barely being a nuisance for Ash since they're not really sure what to do with themselves now that Ash sent their boss to jail and dismantled their organization. Until then, they'll just stick to stalking Ash.

Sobble crying all the time's a running joke until it either evolves or gets old.

Gou failing to catch Legendary Pokémon is going to be a running thing now as the universe, Charizard, and likely Ash's other Pokémon all conspire to sabotage him at every turn.

That and him getting dunked on repeatedly to offset the anime making him out to rapidly be growing in skill to match pace with Ash despite not working incredibly hard to do so and suffering countless defeats to grow from like Ash did is also going to be a thing.

Don't expect Raboot or Sobble in my fanfic series to evolve unless they've earned it in my book. Same with him catching a Legendary.

Plus I'm dropping the whole keeping track of all the Pokémon that Gou has both in the anime and in this series thing I started doing in the last fanfic of this series, because it's a lot of work for not much results.

So that saves me a lot of time cross-referencing with bulbapedia that would have gotten out of hand once the number of Pokémon that Gou has starts totaling out in the triple digits.

Also Charizard has made it his mission to battle and defeat (most of) the Legendary Pokémon of the world so he can flex on everyone he's the top Charizard of his species. The Kanto Elemental Birds, Lugia, the 3 Johto Dogs/Cats are unfortunately first in line to get heckled by him.

I'm head cannoning there are multiple groups of the Legendary Kanto Birds who each have a Lugia to supervise their squabbling. Movie 2 Lugia deals with the Shamouti Birds who likely are the strongest of their species and are the parents/ancestors/creators to the other Zapdos, Moltres, and Articunos in the world.

Silver, who I headcanon was the Lugia at the start of the Journeys anime whose all grown up now likely mediates his own Zapdos, Moltres, and Articuno trio somewhere.

Silver's mom (Whose the mate to the Movie 2 Lugia, probably) handles the Elemental Birds that migrate about through Kanto, Johto, and Sinnoh.

They stay away from the Hoenn region because they don't want to get caught up in the fueds that Groudon and Kyogre have or else they'd have to deal with Rayquaza whose response to things that annoy it or threaten the world is to...

(Flashes back to the start of the Deoxys where Rayquaza Hyper Beams a Deoxys at point blank range and nearly atomizes it.)

You get the picture.

The Galarian Elemental Birds who've shed their standard elements likely have a Galarian Lugia whose probably very reclusive to the point that humanity doesn't even know it exists. (I imagine it's a Fairy/Water-Type.)

Either that or the Big Head Boi who skulks around the Crown Tundra looking for his mounts is the one who has to reign them in. (Now I'm picturing him trying to mount a Galarian Zapdos whilst swinging around an Aegislash. Would that be really cool or really derpy?)

What else should I mention here?

Shots were fired at the Gou successfully catches a Suicune without actually working for it episode, I pointed out how Raid and Max Raid battles in the anime wouldn't really work well since 3 of the people involved in the battle won't be getting a clone of the Pokémon the fourth one caught that they all worked together to catch.

Maybe I don't have a good understanding of the appeal behind Raid Battles because I don't play Pokémon Go and try to disrupt traffic attempting to catch a shiny Psyduck with my phone?

Anyway, I've got a lot of fanfics to do for all the episodes in the anime that have come and gone since my unplanned hiatus. Along with a number of fanfic ideals for this series I've had pop up in my mind in the interregnum that I've been wanting to see how people would take them.

Next fanfic will probably be my response to how I predict the Ash vs. Marnie episode will turn out. Expect the anime writers to get dunked on if the reason Ash lost is because he couldn't Gigantamax his Gengar.

Battles shouldn't be decided by who has access to the current Generation's cool new Gimmick mechanic. (Glares at Alain and the SM anime series who are very guilty of this nonsense.)

Until next time, bye-onara!