A Journey
Summary: Ash's daughter has NO interest in Pokemon training. So, Ash, being the enterprising young Master that he is, puts her into the middle of the woods in the night while she's asleep with a pack, no map, a Pokedex, and a VERY angry Pichu.
Then I thought about Pichu, sitting still on my shoulder, looking withdrawn, and quite tiny.
"Pichu, you okay?" I asked it. It shocked me, but its heart wasn't in it. I was amazed I could tell by the pain of an electric shock how Pichu was feeling.
"Did you like watching Infernape's first battle?" It nodded, almost imperceptibly.
"The second one?" Pichu shook its head no.
"Was it because of what happened to Infernape?" A tiny vertical movement of Pichu's wide, domed head, small enough to just be a slight movement in the breeze, but I knew better.
It bit its lip, and its eyes began to tear up. My tiny archnemisis, the cute yellow terror, my 'rabid light switch,' whether I liked it or not ('not!' my brain was quick to answer), was my first ever Pokemon. More importantly, it was just a baby. I guess I never really thought of it as an infant, as from the start it had all the demands for independence of a hormone-crazed teenager, and all the reasoning skills of a toddler, straddling the worst of two worlds. And yet, this Pichu, who could possibly have been as young as five weeks old, had seen the strongest Pokemon it knew attempt to destroy itself in a storm of insanity. It had seen the Pokemon it presumably looked up to the most, crazy and in a position of weakness. It had seen firsthand the brutality that made me hate Pokemon battling.
"Were you scared by what you saw?" Pichu shook its head.
Maybe what it didn't see, then, I realized. Not only had its role model tried to destroy itself, but no one cared. As a baby Pokemon, even one trained by someone who hates and fears them, it understood that people took care of Pokemon just as much as Pokemon took care of people. Even if it offered no gratitude on that first day of meeting me in the Sinnoh forest, it still probably noticed that even after shocking me to the point of temporary immobility, I still climbed a tree and gave it an apple to eat when it was hungry. And yet, Peter's beloved Pokemon he talked and bragged about, was suffering and confused out on that hard, rocky battle floor, and neither Peter, Brawly, nor the referee did anything but watch, because it was just 'part of the game'. Peter even ordered it to attack. The world doesn't care, the moral sneered at tiny yellow ears; you are just a cog. You are merchandise that breaks, not a living creature decaying into painful insanity.
"Were you scared by what didn't happen?" On the word scared, it shook its head, but nodded afterwards.
"Angry?" I asked, knowing that that was the emotion Pichu expressed the best. Pichu nodded.
"Well remember this, my rabid light switch, as you forced me to say to Peter when I first met him, I'm not training you right now." I smiled at Pichu, who blinked the tears away, still on my shoulder. Maestro looked at me like I was crazy, and Chopin ate his croutons from the salad bar noisily.
"Pichu," Peter joined the conversation, addressing Pichu for the first time. "Do you want me to train you, though? There are two ways to look at this. One, you can avoid battling for all your life so as to make sure that this never happens to you. Two, you can become so strong that you won't let it happen to you." Peter shrugged.
"Pii!" Pichu yelled. I wasn't sure if it was expressing a yes or a no. Peter smiled, though. "I think its saying yes," he explained.
"OK," I said hesitantly, worrying about putting power into its little paws, but at the same time, understanding that if I ever wanted it to grow up, and be able to give it to the Center, where it would be very useful to the world and to other Pokemon, learning to fight is a big part of its growing up.
"I'll help." I said. Pichu rolled its eyes.
"What, you don't think I can train you?" I asked, a bit playfully, but also seriously.
"Piichu!" It called, and shocked me harder than it had in a while.
"Oww…" I moaned. "OK, so you're strong; but a part of being strong is only using it when you have to…"
Pichu cheeped as though in laughter. We have a long way to go, I thought to myself.