By the time they finished talking, Ash and Pikachu had already left Pallet Town and were making their way through the wild grass beyond the town's edge.
The grass out here grew tall enough to swallow a person whole, swaying quietly in the breeze. Ash pushed through it with a stick, eyes scanning the area around him.
Then a small brown bird burst out of the grass and landed on a nearby branch. It had a sharp beak, red-tipped wings, and a look on its face like it was already mad about something.
Ash's eyes went wide. He yanked out his red Pokédex and pointed it at the bird.
The device read off in its flat mechanical voice: "Spearow, the Tiny Bird Pokémon. Known for its violent temperament, it will mercilessly peck at anyone it considers a threat."
"A Spearow!"
Ash pumped his fist, practically vibrating with excitement.
This was it. His first chance to catch a Pokémon.
"Pikachu, let's go! We're catching that Spearow!"
He spun around, face lit up, ready to go.
"Pika pika."
The camera cut to Pikachu, who could not have looked more unimpressed. It paid absolutely no attention to Ash's command.
Instead, it found a shady patch of grass, flopped down, and closed its eyes.
The message was clear: don't bother me.
Ash looked like he was going to lose his mind. Why wouldn't this Pikachu listen to anything?
"Hey! This is our first battle! Would you just move!"
No matter how much he pushed, Pikachu didn't twitch a muscle. Didn't even open its eyes.
The live chat exploded.
[This Pikachu has zero respect for the main character.]
[Starting the journey with a partner who's totally checked out. Rough.]
[That Spearow looks mean. Pikachu sitting it out is honestly the smart play. Our hero is way too green lol]
[If it were me I'd just throw a rock at it.]
[Hey, don't give kids ideas. You gonna take responsibility if it blows up? ...He's not actually crazy enough to do that, right?]
Ash stared at the completely unresponsive Pikachu, thought about it for half a second, and arrived at a solution.
Fine. If you won't fight, I'll handle it myself.
He bent down, grabbed a fist-sized rock off the ground, took aim at the Spearow on the branch, and threw it as hard as he could.
Thwack.
Dead center, right on the head.
"Spear!"
The Spearow let out a sharp cry and tumbled straight off the branch.
"Yes!"
Ash pumped both fists, thrilled that it had actually worked.
But the Spearow didn't stay down. It righted itself, turned around, and locked eyes with Ash. Those already mean little eyes were burning.
Ash went still. A very bad feeling settled over him.
Then the Spearow spread its wings and let out a screech that split the air.
"Speeeaar!!"
That was the signal. From every direction, a thunderous rustling rose out of the tall grass. Hundreds of Spearow erupted into the sky in a massive, furious swarm, every single one of them zeroed in on Ash.
The live chat went dead silent.
Then detonated.
[He just poked the biggest hornet's nest imaginable.]
[That flock is genuinely terrifying.]
[I told you throwing rocks was a bad idea. Now there's a hundred of them.]
[RUN. Just RUN.]
[The sheer pressure of this scene, my skin is crawling.]
Dan the Demon King stared at the screen as the flock blotted out the sky, and his brow tightened.
This was a disaster. For a rookie just starting out, this was about as bad as it got.
On screen, Ash stood frozen.
"Pi... Pikachu! RUN!"
He dropped any pretense of composure, grabbed Pikachu off the ground, and bolted.
The flock surged after them, beaks hammering down like hail.
Ash's clothes tore. Cuts opened across his face.
"Pika!"
Pikachu was just as terrified, all four legs churning so fast it nearly outpaced Ash entirely.
They ran blind until they hit the top of a slope dropping down to a river below.
"Water! There's water down there!"
Ash didn't stop to think. He tucked Pikachu under his arm and threw himself down the hill.
They hit the river with an enormous splash.
Before they could even catch their breath, someone burst out of the water right next to them.
"What is wrong with you! You just scared off every Pokémon I had on the line! And you snapped my fishing rod!"
A girl with short orange hair and a yellow top surfaced beside them, clutching the two halves of a broken fishing rod and glaring like she wanted to do real damage.
Ash came up sputtering, and before he could even start to apologize, a shadow rolled over them from above.
The flock had caught up.
"Sorry, I'll explain later, I just need to borrow this for a second!"
He grabbed the bicycle parked on the bank, dropped Pikachu in the front basket, and started pedaling for his life.
"That's my bike! Hey! STOP!"
The girl's voice faded behind him as Ash tore down the muddy path, the Spearow flock boiling along behind them like a storm cloud.
"Spear! Spear!"
Several broke off and dove, driving their beaks straight into Ash's back.
"Agh!"
He gasped but didn't let up for a single second.
"Pikachu, stay in the basket!"
He hunched forward and put his body between Pikachu and the flock.
Then the rain hit.
The sky had been clear a minute ago. Now it turned dark and heavy, and fat drops came hammering down without warning. The path turned slick, and the bike started losing speed.
"Come on!"
Ash ground his teeth and kept pedaling. Rain and blood ran into his eyes. He didn't blink.
The flock was closing in. The sound of it alone made it hard to breathe.
Then the road ahead just dropped into a massive pothole.
"Watch out!"
He grabbed the brakes, but the wheels had nothing to grip on the wet mud.
The bike went down hard, bouncing twice before stopping. Ash and Pikachu were thrown clear and landed in the mud.
The Spearow flock descended.
They circled overhead, pulling together for a final strike.
Ash pushed himself up off the ground. He had nothing left to run on.
He looked at the swarm closing in from every side, and for a moment his face went blank.
Then he looked behind him.
Pikachu was trembling against his back. Those eyes, usually sharp and full of attitude, were wide open with fear.
Ash blinked.
This Pikachu had refused to listen to him from the start. It had shocked him, ignored him, and made absolutely no effort to hide how little it thought of him. But when things got genuinely bad, when there was nowhere left to run, it had moved behind him without thinking.
Something in Ash shifted.
He took a slow breath, spread his arms wide, and pulled Pikachu hard against his chest.
"Back off! You're not touching Pikachu!"
He roared it up at the swarm, and every trace of fear had left his eyes. What replaced it was something steady and fixed.
"Spear!"
The lead Spearow came screaming down and drove its beak straight into Ash's arm.
"Agh!"
He didn't let go. He clenched his jaw and held on while it tore into him again and again.
"Come on! Hit me!"
He didn't move an inch.
The live chat went completely quiet. Every comment stopped.
Then it blew up.
[Wait. This kid's actually got something, doesn't he?]
[I take back everything I said. He's got guts.]
[I thought he was a complete idiot ten minutes ago. Now I kind of think he's something else.]
Dan watched the figure on screen, battered and bleeding and still standing his ground, and felt something close to real admiration settle over him.
At this rate though, he wouldn't hold up much longer.
The music dropped into something low and tight.
On screen, the wounds on Ash's body kept multiplying and his focus was starting to slip. But his arms stayed locked around Pikachu. Even as his legs started to give, his grip didn't loosen by a fraction.
"Pika..."
Inside those arms, Pikachu felt him shaking. It didn't fully understand what it was seeing.
It looked at this ridiculous human. Terrified, completely outmatched, running on nothing, and still throwing himself in front of it.
Why?
After everything it had put him through.
Something in Pikachu shifted too.
It pulled itself free from Ash's arms, slowly and with certainty, and climbed to the top of his head.
The music cut out entirely.
It stood up straight and faced the swarm head-on. The red pouches on its cheeks crackled and flashed, charge building fast.
"Pika..."
"CHUUUU!!"
The sound that came out of it was massive. A torrent of electricity exploded outward from its body, more powerful than anything it had ever released.
The current ripped through the sky like a living thing, golden and roaring, crashing through the flock of Spearow in a blinding cascade of lightning. The whole sky lit up.
BOOM.
A thunderclap rolled across the world.
Every Spearow in the swarm was hit. The air filled with their cries as they dropped out of the sky one by one, like rain going the wrong direction. For one suspended moment, everything burned gold.
Then the music came back, soaring.
The live chat lost its mind.
[WHAT.]
[Those effects. That music. I'm actually fired up.]
[Awesome]
[That was incredible.]
Dan sat forward in his chair, unable to look away.
The shift hit him all at once. Total despair flipping to sudden hope, and the exact moment everything changed for Pikachu. He couldn't remember the last time a show had gotten to him like that. He couldn't remember anything else that ever had done so.
The last Spearow tumbled out of the sky. The air went still.
The rain began to ease.
Pikachu, completely spent, slid off Ash's head and dropped into the mud.
Ash pushed through the last of what he had, crawled over, and pulled Pikachu into his arms.
"Pika... chu..."
He said its name softly. Just checking.
Pikachu opened its eyes a little. It looked up at him, at the blood and mud and rain all over his face, and made a small sound.
"Pika..."
It raised one small paw and touched his cheek.
Ash smiled. Quiet and relieved. He held Pikachu close and didn't say anything.
The music faded out. A shaft of light broke through the clouds.
A rainbow stretched across the sky. The clouds pulled apart.
Golden sunlight poured through and fell over the two of them.
And then, soaring high above that arc of color, a Pokémon appeared. It had gleaming golden feathers and long tail plumes trailing behind it like banners, its whole body radiating something ancient and untouchable. It drifted through the air without effort, impossibly graceful.
It glanced down at the two of them below, something like quiet recognition passing through its eyes, then beat its great wings and rose higher, disappearing into the clouds.
The Pokédex at Ash's hip activated on its own.
"Unable to analyze. Insufficient data."
Ash and Pikachu stared up at the empty sky, struck speechless.
"What... was that?"
It came out barely above a whisper.
The live chat surged.
[Was that... a god?]
[Is that actually a Pokémon?]
[That image. Those wings. The light. I don't think I'll ever forget that.]
[The Pokédex couldn't identify it. Whatever that thing is, it's on a completely different level.]
[Got a screenshot, DM me, two bucks each]
Dan stared at the spot where it had vanished and felt something stir deep in his chest.
It had only appeared for a moment. But it left something behind, a resonance that didn't settle, like something had reached a part of him that didn't usually get touched.
Meanwhile, the score built underneath the scene, sweeping and full of open space, as Ash held Pikachu and looked up at the rainbow with something aching in his eyes.
"Pikachu. We're going to get stronger. Strong enough to reach something like that someday. I promise."
"Pika!"
Pikachu nodded firmly. And its eyes had completely changed. The attitude was gone. What was there now was simple and solid and real: trust.
The image held. Two small figures looking up at the sky together, the rainbow arcing above them, Ho-Oh's silhouette shrinking into the distance.
Then, with no warning, Pikachu's eyes rolled back and it passed out cold.
"Huh?! PIKACHU!!"
Ash yelped, grabbed it, and took off running toward the horizon as fast as his legs would carry him.
Cut to black.
A logo faded in: a Poké Ball, red and white, with the outline of Pikachu's ears and its lightning bolt tail worked into the design.
"Pokémon: Unaired"
"To be continued..."
The final frame held while the live chat churned on, full of people who weren't ready to let it end.
Dan leaned back in his chair and let out a long, slow breath.
He honestly could not remember the last time he'd enjoyed watching something this much.
۞۞۞۞
https://p-atreon.com/lost_magus
(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)