At the very end of the video…
Sunlight poured down from the sky, while Ho-Oh radiated seven-colored light.
The boy held Pikachu in his arms, bathed in the sunlight.
Both wore bright smiles.
The image slowly dimmed.
Across the countless worlds of the Multiverse, people watched the boy and Pikachu on the screen, and the stone weighing on their hearts finally fell away.
They were genuinely happy for them.
And deeply envious of the bond between them—a bond that transcended life and death.
This video made many people reflect.
That boy had redefined what it meant to be a partner.
A partner was someone with whom you entrusted life and death.
"That boy is what a true Pokémon Trainer should be. I really wonder who he is… I'd love to meet him someday," Professor Okamaki said with admiration. Today, that boy had made the whole world feel ashamed.
"Yeah… that's what a real partner is."
"I wonder whether those trainer who only catch Pokémon like they're collecting cards, then leave them alone without caring for them, feel ashamed after watching this," Cynthia said.
There was a type of Trainer in this world—
People who had no interest in battling. To satisfy their obsession with collecting, they wanted to capture every Pokémon in the world.
But after catching them, they neglected them completely—some didn't even know which Pokémon they owned anymore.
Cynthia was very interested in the boy from the video. If possible, she really wanted to battle him someday.
Johto Region, Vermilion City
"Wow, Marshadow is so cool! Ho-Oh is so cool too! I'm definitely going to catch them in the future!" shouted a six-year-old boy named Goh, his eyes sparkling.
"Ho-Oh really deserves TOP 9. It's truly terrifying," Professor Okamaki said again.
"Yeah. Its power is horrifying," Cynthia agreed.
From beginning to end, Ho-Oh had never actually attacked.
But no one should forget—
Just one of its feathers had allowed Marshadow to control all the wild Pokémon across an entire mountain range.
And it had also granted Marshadow such frightening power.
That was only the power of a single feather.
No one dared imagine what it would be like if Ho-Oh itself attacked.
…
Kanto Region, Professor Oak's Laboratory
Professor Oak looked at Ash beside him, and even he had not expected it.
Ash—who always wore that absentminded look, who seemed carefree every single day, and who constantly shouted about wanting to become a Pokémon Master—
Would one day become so dazzling.
That love for Pokémon, that depth of feeling—
Even Professor Oak, a Pokémon researcher, felt inferior by comparison.
Then suddenly—
The screen, which had already dimmed, displayed another line of text at the very end.
[Oh right…]
[There's something I forgot to mention]
[Marshadow is also a kind of Legendary Pokémon, but it is still in its juvenile stage, so it can't use its full power. However, with Ho-Oh's feather, it can temporarily wield power close to that of a Legendary Pokémon]
[This time it's really over. See you in the next video]
"…What the hell?!"
Everyone was dumbfounded.
From the video, they already knew Pikachu had been raised to an absurd level, and that Marshadow's strength was terrifying—so much so that even a Champion might not be its match. Perhaps only a Pokémon Master could truly battle it.
But no one had expected—
It was a Legendary Pokémon too?!
"?????? Marshadow is actually a juvenile Legendary Pokémon?? And with the feather, it can use power close to a real Legendary Pokémon??"
"I remember Pikachu knocked it back, didn't it?"
"Not just knocked it back—it blasted it away. They were going back and forth evenly!"
"And at the end of the video, Pikachu exploded with terrifying potential. That was Thunder, right? My Ampharos uses Thunder and it's only as thick as a thigh, but this Pikachu's Thunder was a gigantic pillar of lightning hundreds of meters wide—it woke every Pokémon in the whole mountain range!"
Countless people were stunned.
Didn't that mean—
That Pikachu could fight a Legendary Pokémon head-on?!
"How exactly did you raise it like that?!" Professor Oak couldn't help asking Ash.
Ash: "????"
Professor Oak slapped his forehead.
He had forgotten—that was Ash from the future.
But this was still too outrageous.
To raise a Pikachu, an Electric-type Pokémon ranked only around the middle to lower end, to this level—
How had he done it?
Could an ordinary Pokémon really be trained to possess power approaching that of a Legendary Pokémon?
Professor Oak's head was full of questions.
As a Pokémon research fanatic, he now wished Ash would hurry up and grow older so those mysteries could be answered.
In any case…
On that day, every Trainer in the entire Pokémon world went crazy.
They gave that Pikachu a title—
God Pikachu.
On that day, Pikachu became the Pokémon countless people most wanted to train.
Kanto Region
Deep inside a certain forest, there was a Kangaskhan with a baby Kangaskhan in its pouch—and also a small Pichu.
Pichu's evolution was Pikachu.
This little Pichu had been wandering in the forest not long after birth, and Kangaskhan had taken it in and raised it together with its own child.
Inside the pouch, the little Pichu watched the video on the dimensional platform.
Watching that Pikachu, its eyes shone brightly.
It remembered—
After evolving, it too would become a Pikachu.
Could it become that strong as well?
If that happened, then it could protect Kangaskhan Mama instead.
And as it looked at the boy holding Pikachu on the screen—
For some reason, the little Pichu felt that the boy gave it a strange sense of familiarity.
...
"Professor, the League has already finished its investigation."
Professor Oak's assistant walked in.
"They uncovered a ruin related to Ho-Oh."
"It does indeed record the story of Ho-Oh saving three Eevee and turning them into the three Legendary Beasts."
Professor Oak frowned. "The Burned Tower and the Bell Tower were built only about a thousand years ago. That wasn't all that long ago. Since Ho-Oh appeared before the public, that story should have been passed down."
"According to the writing in the ruins," the assistant said, "everyone in Ecruteak City really did see Ho-Oh appear back then. But before long, they discovered that their memories were gradually fading. Their memories of Ho-Oh were mysteriously becoming weaker and weaker."
"So they carved it into the buildings."
"But after thousands of years of change, the buildings were buried. The people who had seen Ho-Oh forgot about it, and after they all passed away, later generations had no way of knowing."
Professor Oak suddenly understood.
That explained everything.
"Oh, right, Professor Oak," the assistant added. "According to some videos on the internet… it seems that some Pokémon have suddenly become much stronger."
"Especially Ground-types, Water-types, Fire-types, Flying-types… Pokémon of those types all seem to have received some kind of boost."
Professor Oak: "????"