Author's note: Hey there, guys!
... Well, this chapter turned out waaaay longer than I thought it would. Like, double the length. So I split into two!
Expect the next chapter within a few days, if all goes well!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!
Chapter Nine: Origins
"Pichu, Thunder Shock!" Lexi called out.
"(Okay!)" Pichu replied, sending power to his cheeks.
With a cry, he unleashed the electrical charge at his intended target - a large rock they were using for training - but he immediately felt agonising pain. He screamed before blacking out.
When his consciousness returned soon afterwards, he blinked a few times to get back his vision. Above him loomed a head of blonde hair that fell just past the shoulders, green eyes narrowed in annoyance.
"Tsk," Lexi said. "Man, I really hope you evolve soon... Alright, get up and try again."
His ears drooped against the grass he was lying on. "(O... Okay...)"
"(Being a pichu, I was always electrocuting myself...)" Pikachu explained. He smiled awkwardly. "(It made training really hard, but I tried my best...)"
Pichu panted in exhaustion, struggling to pull himself up from the floor.
Behind him, Lexi sighed in irritation. "You wanna get stronger, don't you?" she griped.
"(Y... Yes...)" he replied.
"Then get up and try again."
"(I could never win a battle,)" Pikachu explained. "(At best, I could tie with a pokémon, but, mostly, I lost... and Lexi started to get annoyed with me...)"
"Here," Lexi said, shoving a container of pokémon food into Pichu's paws.
"(Thanks...)" he muttered.
Lexi moved away to sit down and eat her sandwiches, scowling at the sky. Her black T-shirt, as always, perfectly reflected her mood. With a dejected sigh, Pichu sat down amongst his teammates, all three of them quietly eating their pellets. Pulling out one of his own, he nibbled on it.
He cringed at the taste. Dry as sand. Soft as a sponge. About as tasty as dirt.
... But it was food.
Buizel's eyes widened. "(She gave you bad food?)" he asked.
Pikachu smiled awkwardly. "(Yeah...)" he replied. "(Well, it was edible... it was just the cheapest stuff she could buy.)"
"(She didn't make it herself?)" Pachirisu asked, blinking.
"(Heh, nah. She could barely make sandwiches, never mind pokémon food.)"
"(... But she... looked after you, right?)" Buneary asked quietly.
Pikachu gave a light sigh in response. "(Well, she fed me and trained me, sure... but...)"
Failure. He was a failure. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he could never do anything to make his trainer happy.
She often praised her spearow, her sandshrew and her nidoran, but never him. He was the group underdog. The one who could never do anything right.
He stared at the metallic walls of his pokéball, miserable. How often had he been forced to stare at these walls? Far too many hours a day. Lexi only ever let him out to eat and train, then he'd be straight back in here. Straight back to staring at the walls.
At first, it had been a comforting space. Warm. Cosy. A place to curl up and relax. It had calmed him down the day he'd been caught.
Now, however, he craved the outdoors. It was big and wide and beautiful, yet he was never allowed to explore any of it.
Inside the pokéball, it was quiet. Lonely. It was rare he got to speak to anyone. Hear anyone. Where even were they right now? He had no idea. Lexi never travelled with anyone, never spoke to anyone, so he never knew where she'd travelled. One of the few times she had, it had been to visit someone, and that had been before his time with her.
She never really talked to her pokémon, either. Never let them run around. Play. Have fun.
... He was going stir-crazy.
Pachirisu had his paws over his mouth. Buizel's eyes were wide. Piplup's beak had fallen open. Pikachu, however, didn't dare to look at Buneary's face.
Ears drooping slightly, he continued.
As Pichu nibbled on his pellets, he glanced around at his teammates, who were all eating quietly. Was this all there was to life? Was there really no more? He had the strangest feeling there was more, but, for the life of him, he couldn't remember. All he could remember was hysteria, then a pokéball. Had Lexi hatched him, then caught him? He had no idea.
It frustrated him to no end that he had no idea.
"(All those feelings combined...)" Pikachu explained, "(well...)" He tried to smile. "(I'm sure you can imagine...)"
As Pichu continued to eat his disgusting pellets, the frustration began to build. His lack of socialising. His inability to battle. The lack of sympathy from his trainer. The lack of knowledge about his life beforehand. The many hours inside his pokéball. It was becoming too much.
He scowled, deeper and deeper, at his pellets before throwing them away in a rage.
The other three pokémon looked up at him.
"(What's wrong with you?)" Sandshrew asked, his expression neutral.
"(Everything!)" Pichu shrieked.
Spearow gave him an unimpressed gaze. "(Whoa, jeez,)" she said, "(calm down.)"
"(How can I be calm?!)" Pichu's eyes began to water. "(Everything sucks!)"
He was tired, confused and stressed. His life was terrible. He hated it. Yet it was the only life he'd ever known.
That only frustrated him more.
"(... Is that so?)" Sandshrew asked.
"(Yes! The food's horrible, the trainer's mean, and I'm always in my stupid pokéball!)"
"(Pfft,)" Spearow replied, glaring at him. "(Baby.)"
He blinked at her. "(Huh?)"
She ruffled her feathers at him. "(This is what having a trainer is like. Get used to it.)"
His eyes widened. "(Wha-?)"
Nidoran grinned. "(It's true!)" he said.
Sandshrew shrugged. "(It's been like this the whole time we've been with her,)" he explained.
"(Then...)" Pichu replied slowly, "(why haven't you done something about it?)"
Spearow scoffed. "(What's the point?)" she asked. "(It is how it is.)"
"(Yep!)" Nidoran agreed. "(Totally!)"
"(We should be grateful she's actually feeding us...)" Sandshrew said.
"(But...)" Pichu protested weakly.
"(Stop whining and just put up with it!)" Spearow snapped. "(Jeez...)"
Turning away, the three of them went back to eating.
Pichu stared at them in hurt and disbelief, his ears drooping low against his head.
Piplup, Buizel and Pachirisu were still staring, their eyes conveying silent distress.
Pikachu smiled awkwardly. "(So, yeah,)" he said, "(it wasn't the best-)"
He heard a sniffle beside him. Blinking, he turned to his girlfriend. The sight that met his eyes slammed into his chest with the force of a freight train. Her eyes were wide and crinkled in anguish. Tears were leaking out the sides and down her face. Her body was shaking. The marshmallow stick she'd been holding lay forgotten in the fire.
Oh, legends, he hated that look on her face. It hurt so much.
Tentatively, he reached a paw out towards her. "(Buneary?)"
Wailing, she flung herself at him, hugging him tight.
"(I'm sorry!)" she cried. "(I'm so sorry you had to... go through all that!)"
"(Hey, hey... it's alright.)" He tried to smile for her as he stroked her back. "(I'm happy now... and, to be fair, it could've been a whole lot worse.)"
She sniffled again. "(I know, but...)"
"(Come on, no more tears...)"
There was another sniffle elsewhere. "(Come on, Buneary...)" Piplup said, "(stop it, or you'll set me off, too...)"
"(That story was so sad, though!)" Pachirisu cried. "(You were all alone and sad and your trainer was a jerk and your teammates were jerks and-)"
"(Yeah, sounds like you had it rough,)" Buizel agreed.
Pikachu turned to them, still comforting Buneary. "(Yeah, but it's all in the past,)" he replied. "(Things have gotten better since then.)"
"(So...)" Piplup said, "(what happened after that?)"
Pikachu blinked. "(Huh?)"
"(Well, you ended up at Oak's lab, right?)" The penguin shook the tears out of his eyes and gave a determined frown. "(I thought you were born there, or something, but clearly not!)"
"(Yeah, that's a good point,)" Buizel agreed. "(What happened?)"
Pikachu heaved a sigh. He didn't want to upset Buneary any further, but his friends did seem rather curious.
"(Well...)" he replied.
"Pichu, Thunder Shock!" Lexi called out.
Pichu had reached his breaking point. He'd only been able to go on for so long, being treated like a slave by his trainer, and being ignored by his teammates.
"I said, use Thunder Shock!"
He scowled, remembering the lack of love. The lack of caring.
Her tone got impatient. "Pichu!"
Why should he fight for someone who probably wouldn't do the same for him? Why should he be part of a team that didn't care about him?
So he snapped.
Tightly folding his arms, he turned away with a huff.
"Pichu!"
The other trainer laughed. "Looks like your pichu doesn't like you very much!" he said.
"Pichu!" She sounded like she was gritting her teeth now. "Use... Thunder Shock!"
"(No,)" Pichu replied.
"(Oh, man,)" Buizel said, smirking. "(You defied her?)"
"(Yeah...)" Pikachu replied. "(I just couldn't take any more, so I... refused to fight.)"
"(... How did she take that?)" Pachirisu asked cautiously.
"(Well... she wasn't happy. The more I defied her, the angrier she got with me... until, one day...)"
Pichu could sense that something was off the second he'd been called out, but he wasn't sure what it was. All he knew was that it had felt different from the other times. It was almost like his very molecules were taking a breath of fresh air. He glared up at the face of his trainer, who was also glaring down at him.
"... Well," she said, "since you refuse to listen to me, I guess I have no choice." She flicked her head upwards in a signal. "Go."
He blinked at her, confused.
She scowled deeper. "You heard me. Go!"
He continued to stare.
"You don't wanna obey me, you don't wanna evolve... so just go!" She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans, suddenly looking uncomfortable.
He frowned, suspicious. She was letting him go? Really? Just like that?
They continued to hold each other's gaze, unblinkingly, almost like a staring contest. Waiting for the other to crack. To make the first move.
Eventually, something flashed across Lexi's face. An emotion that he'd never seen on her before.
... But he was too angry to care what it was. He was just glad to be rid of her.
If he'd been a pikachu, he'd have probably zapped her a million times by now. As it stood, though, he'd only hurt himself doing that.
Wasting no time, he turned on his heel and ran into the forest.
"(She released you?!)" Piplup cried with wide eyes.
"(Yeah...)" Pikachu replied. He forced on a smile. "(I should have expected it, really... since I'd been disobeying her...)"
"(What was that weird emotion, though?)" Buizel asked curiously.
Pikachu paused a moment with his answer. "(Well... when I look back on it... it might have been regret.)"
"(Regret?)" Pachirisu asked, blinking.
"(Yeah. Maybe she was finally starting to realise the mistakes she'd made... I don't think she was doing things maliciously... I think she just didn't know how to look after pokémon properly.)"
Pachirisu's eyes widened. "(Really?)"
"(Yeah.)" Pikachu's smile softened. "(I hope she's changed for the better since. Her pokémon deserve it.)"
"(But they were complete jerks to you!)" Piplup cried, flailing angrily.
"(Well, yeah... but they didn't know any better, either.)"
"(Pfft,)" Buizel said with a grin, "(you're way too soft.)"
Pikachu smiled sheepishly. "(Ha, maybe.)"
"(... So, what happened next?)" Buneary asked quietly, still cuddled up next to him.
"(Well...)"
It was only after Pichu's anger cooled did he realise that he had no idea how to live in the wild.
The first thing he did was panic. What would he do? Where would he go? He didn't know of any home he could return to, so he'd have to start from scratch. Where would he find food? Shelter?
He glanced around him at the wide open space, suddenly terrified. He could hear pidgey chirping in the trees. Feet scuttling through the bushes. Wind whistling through his ears. Fields of green stretching as far as the eye could see. It was daunting.
... Then it hit him.
He was in a world of possibilities. He could build his own life. His own future. He could mark out his own path.
... He was free.