A dramatic musical sting cut through the air.
What followed was a swirling cosmic backdrop, and two figures stepped forward into the blazing light.
One was a handsome young man with blue hair.
"Since you asked so nicely, I guess I'll tell you!"
The other was a woman with long, wine-red hair.
"To protect the world from devastation, to unite all peoples within our nation!"
The two moved in sync, trading lines back and forth.
"To denounce the evils of truth and love, the villainous characters you can't get enough of!"
"Jessie!"
"James!"
The music swelled to its most triumphant peak, and a massive letter R rose up behind them.
"Team Rocket, blasting off at the speed of light! Surrender now or prepare to fight!"
"Meowth, that's right!"
Against a burst of galactic imagery, a figure that looked like a cat but walked upright leapt out of the shadows, a sly grin spread wide across its face.
The live chat went completely silent for one beat.
Then, predictably, it erupted.
[LMAOOO what even is this, I can't breathe]
[Blasting off across the galaxy? Are you two actually from space??]
[These are supposed to be the VILLAINS?? Are you serious right now??]
[Can we talk about the talking cat?? A Pokémon that can actually talk??]
Ash, watching all of this unfold, nearly choked again.
Wait. These guys are seriously the bad guys?
Honestly... he had no idea what to think.
Hard to even put into words.
On screen, Ash stood there completely frozen, staring at the three bizarre strangers who had just barged through the door.
"Team Rocket? What do you even want?! Pikachu is in the middle of treatment, you need to stop this!"
Nurse Joy stepped forward as well.
"What is the meaning of this? If your Pokémon need treatment, please wait your turn. There are patients resting inside!"
"Oh, how precious. A little boy playing hero and a nurse who thinks she can stop us."
The woman called Jessie flipped her long hair back.
"We're not here for treatment, darling. We're here for something far more valuable. Word is this Pokémon Center is sitting on quite a collection from trainers all across the region. How wonderfully convenient that they're all in one place. We'll be relieving you of the burden."
She hurled the Poké Balls in her hand.
"Go, Arbok!"
"Go, Koffing!"
A massive purple serpent and a round, floating Pokémon materialized in the lobby, both radiating pure menace.
"They're thieves!"
Nurse Joy cried out and lunged forward to stop them, but the thick smog Koffing belched out drove her back.
Ash took one look and charged.
"You're not getting away with this! Pikachu is still in treatment and I am not letting you near it!"
"Oh, you are just adorable. Step aside, little boy. There's no need for anyone to get hurt -- well, not any more than necessary."
The Team Rocket duo gave their Pokémon the order without hesitation.
"Arbok, Poison Sting!"
"Koffing, Smokescreen!"
The lobby exploded into chaos. Sharp needles came flying and Ash threw himself through the smoke trying to dodge, picking up cuts along the way, coughing hard.
Jessie raised the back of her hand to her mouth and laughed.
The live chat started rolling.
[What a pair of jerks. If Pikachu wasn't down they'd never be this bold.]
[Ash, stop fighting, you're already hurt!]
[Oh no, Pikachu is still in there. What if they get to it?]
[Someone please deal with these three clowns!!]
Just then, the treatment room door swung open.
The indicator light above it shifted from red to green.
Pikachu lay on a rolling gurney, pushed out by a Chansey, an electrical transfer tube still attached to the top of its head. It looked drained, but its eyes were open.
"Pika?"
Taking in the scene in front of it, and the two menacing Pokémon across the room, Pikachu blinked.
"Pikachu, watch out!"
Ash yelled.
"Well, well. Look what rolled out of the treatment room. Hardly worth our time."
"Though I suppose we can't just leave it lying around..." James added.
"Arbok, grab it!"
Arbok lunged at Pikachu, jaws spread wide.
"Pikachu, move!"
Ash threw himself forward, trying to get between Pikachu and Arbok, but Koffing cut him off. Even so, in that split second he found a gear he didn't know he had.
He faked one direction, slipped past Koffing in a single burst, and appeared directly behind Pikachu, shoving it clear of Arbok's strike.
Smoke poured in. Visibility dropped to almost nothing.
"This way, now!"
In the middle of the chaos, Nurse Joy was frighteningly calm. She grabbed Ash by the arm as he stumbled through another coughing fit, steered the gurney with her other hand, and used Koffing's smokescreen as cover to sprint down the corridor and through a door at the far end.
The door slammed shut and locked in one motion.
Outside, a heavy dragging sound swept the floor: Arbok, slithering. Beneath it, the low hum of Koffing drifting through the air.
Two warped, looming silhouettes pressed against the small window in the door.
"Strange. I can still smell them somewhere close..."
"Forget it. Probably just a storage closet. Check somewhere else."
The footsteps faded. Ash finally let out a long breath, sliding down the door until his back hit the floor, chest heaving.
The chat audience had been holding their breath the whole time.
[That was way too close!!]
[Nearly gave me a heart attack.]
[Nurse Joy keeping her cool like that is wild... I guess even Pokémon doctors are built different.]
But before anyone could fully relax, the room plunged into darkness.
"What happened? Why did the lights go out?" Ash's voice cut through the dark, tight with alarm.
"It's them." Nurse Joy's voice carried a quiet, resigned certainty. "They cut the main power. We can't see anything and we've lost contact with the outside."
[Great, now it's a full-on horror movie!!]
[Okay maybe not that scary, but this is definitely bad.]
[Ash, think of something! Pikachu is still sick!!]
"So what do we do? Is there any way to get the power back on?"
"Don't worry." In the dark, Nurse Joy's voice steadied. "The main power is down, but there's a backup generator. Ash, come with me. Help me get it started."
Some shuffling followed, then the heavy clunk of a breaker being thrown, and the pitch-black room came alive with a faint, flickering glow.
The source of that light, though, was a little unexpected.
Ash stared at what was in front of him, the corner of his mouth twitching.
Right in the center of the room sat an enormous treadmill-style generator, and on top of it, lined up in a perfectly neat row, were... Pikachu. A whole bunch of them.
One, two, three... easily more than a dozen Pikachu were sprinting on that treadmill at full speed, their little legs a total blur, moving so fast they were practically leaving afterimages.
With every stride, the generator's gauge needle spiked, electricity crackled and hummed, and the bulbs overhead flickered to life.
And underneath all of it, their chorus:
"Pika-pika-pika-pika-pika-pika-pi..."
The sight was so absurd it defied description.
Every last bit of tension in the live chat evaporated instantly.
[HAHAHAHA is this a Pokémon power plant??]
[I KNEW all the Pikachu in this world were basically a labor force!! Look how hard they're going!!]
[Pikachu: burning those calories for the greater good.jpg]
[Nurse Joy: as long as there are Pikachu, this hospital will never go dark. You're welcome.]
"Power's back!" Nurse Joy wiped her forehead and rushed to the control panel. "It won't hold long, but it's enough for one thing."
Her fingers flew across the keyboard and a transfer progress bar appeared on the screen.
"I'm contacting the Pokémon Center in Pallet Town! We can use the transport system to beam all the Poké Balls stored here over there for safekeeping!"
With a deep mechanical hum, one Poké Ball after another was pulled into the transport tubes, vanishing as streaks of red light.
"You can actually teleport things like that? That's incredible..." Ash murmured, watching in disbelief.
The chat was equally impressed.
[This is literally cloud storage!! Cloud-based Pokémon backup!!]
[Is this what technology looks like in the Pokémon world? Even shipping is this advanced??]
[Does Pallet Town even have a Pokémon Center?]
[Nurse Joy in Pallet Town: why am I suddenly getting a hundred deliveries??]
But just as the progress bar hit the halfway point, the sealed door exploded inward with a thunderous crash.
BOOM.
A blast of thick smoke blew the door clean off its hinges, and Poké Balls that hadn't transferred yet went scattering across the floor like a hailstorm. Through the rolling smoke and the cascade of bouncing balls, three familiar silhouettes stepped through once more.
"Did you honestly think a locked door was going to stop Team Rocket?"
"No matter where you run, no matter where you hide, a Pokémon's presence is never lost on us."
Team Rocket was back.
"The transfer got cut off!" Nurse Joy cried out.
Staring at the Poké Balls rolling across the floor, Ash knew running wasn't an option anymore.
His jaw tightened. He reached down and grabbed the nearest Poké Ball.
"Fine. Then we fight! I don't care who you are, I need you right now!"
He shouted and threw the ball as hard as he could.
A sharp snap. A flash of light. The ball opened...
And nothing came out. It just wobbled and rolled back across the floor.
Empty.
The live chat flatlined.
[...]
[Main character luck. Incredible.]
[lmaooo.]
Ash's face went red. He grabbed another Poké Ball.
"Okay, let's try this again! Go, Pokémon!"
The ball burst open in midair. White light hit the floor, and a small purple rat Pokémon took shape.
"Ratata!"
"R... Rattata?"
Ash blinked.
The second this Rattata materialized, it spotted the enormous Arbok across the room, tongue flicking between massive fangs.
Rattata shuddered from head to tail, didn't even hesitate, and with a little whoosh turned back into red light and dove straight into the Poké Ball on the floor.
It didn't move again.
[Okay that's actually painfully realistic. Mice are terrified of snakes.]
[Rattata: I'm done, get me out of here!]
[Ash: I cannot carry this team!!]
"Run, Ash!" Nurse Joy shouted the second she saw it. "Get out of here! Take Pikachu and go!"
"But..."
"No buts, GO!"
Ash bit down on his lip. He looked at Pikachu, still leaking little sparks, still weak from treatment. Then he steeled himself, grabbed the gurney, and ran.
"Not so fast, sweetheart." Jessie's laugh rang out as she cut him off in the lobby. "That little electric mouse belongs to Team Rocket now. In fact, every Pokémon in this building belongs to Team Rocket. Not one of them is walking out that door."
But right at that moment, the crowd of Pikachu who had been running on the generator, startled by the commotion, came flooding out of the back room like a wave breaking.
"Pika! Pika!"
The mob landed squarely on the rolling gurney, burying Ash's exhausted Pikachu somewhere at the bottom of the pile.
"Pika... chu!"
The group did not look happy about having their run interrupted. In near-perfect unison, they unleashed a surge of electricity aimed straight at the charging Team Rocket members.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Thick arcs of golden lightning ripped through the lobby.
"WAAAAAH!"
Jessie and James barely had time to scream. They were blasted black, hair standing straight up, and Arbok and Koffing beside them convulsed with the current.
Meowth, though, landed clear.
"Unbelievable. I'm surrounded by amateurs, meowth."
Meowth surveyed the now-drained Pikachu and flexed its claws.
"Looks like the cavalry's all tapped out. Guess it's down to me, meowth. As usual. Every last one of you is coming with me. Don't make this harder than it has to be."
It lunged straight for the pile on the gurney.
Ash's Pikachu was still buried underneath the others, watching Meowth close in. Then its gaze shifted. Something changed in its eyes.
It forced itself out from under the pile and let out a series of urgent calls toward Ash.
"Pika! Pikapi!"
Ash stared at it, then called back:
"Pika, pikapipi?"
"Pikapi!"
Pikachu gave a firm nod. The electrical pouches on its cheeks began to flicker with a faint, unsteady glow.
Ash scanned the room. His eyes landed on the bicycle sitting in the corner of the lobby, the one that had already been zapped so thoroughly it was charred coal-black.
"I got it!"
Without another word, Ash sprinted over and hauled the bicycle back.
By now, Jessie and James, though still scorched, had shaken off the jolt and dragged themselves back to their feet.
They both watched what Ash was doing with completely blank stares.
"What in the world is that kid doing, meowth?"
Even Meowth had frozen mid-lunge, totally thrown off.
"Is he seriously dragging that burned-out wreck over here? What is wrong with this child?" Jessie coughed out a puff of black smoke.
Ash set the bicycle upright and climbed on.
"Pikachu!!"
Pikachu launched itself through the air and landed on the handlebars. Ash, looking for all the world like he had completely lost it, started pedaling. Hard. As fast as he could.
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones