Chapter 18 - Unleashed.

Spearow felt it.

He didn't know what it is, but he felt it. A great power of some kind emitting from somewhere close by.

Meanwhile, the Fearow stared down at the human below, sneering at how it was standing there with its head hanging down in despair. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. He had the spine to punch his face instead of watching afar like the weak lifeform his kind is. These so-called trainers are nothing more than speck of twigs hiding cowardly behind slaves they throw out in battles to prove they were "strong". What a joke.

"Do you see it now, weak one?!" Fearow cawed a laugh as he boasted, "No beings can compare to my power. I have a flock, an army! You have none, just a measly, powerless, foolish lifeform,"

The human didn't respond to his loathing, nor moved.

"I, on the other hand, am a powerful god! I control the weather! I decide what lives and what dies! I am an immortal ruler! All I say are what this foolish world follows!" He looked at the human with a cruel, manic smile, "And do you know my judgement for you?"

*...ping!*

Every part of Spearow down to his core tensed up so suddenly that he almost lost control in the air. He did not know if the others felt it as his eyes looked around. That strange.... flick, it held the same power he had felt. He tried searching for it as his arrogant leader spoke.

"Your judgement...."

*Ping!*

Spearow's eyes went down to the boy. It somehow came from this human, who hadn't shown any changes.

"Is a painful suffering death!" Fearow's eyes gleamed with venomous, twisted glee, letting out a cry before diving along with the rest of the flock.

Most of them at least.

Time and space seemed to have seized to exist around the lone Spearow for a moment. His eyes scanned the boy from his distance, trying to find what changed.

Then he saw it.

The boy's hand, one that was missing its green hand skin, twitched with a spark. An electric spark.

Reality soon returned around him. Spearow realized that he was flying away from the boy, feeling the hard desperate flapping of his wings as his adrenaline coursed through him and his mind commanding him not to look back as he passed his fellow Spearow. He wasn't flying away out of fear, but some force had given him the order to get as far from the location as he could while ignoring the yells of the rest of the flock.

"Where are you going?!"

"Come back here!"

This didn't go unheard to the leader who turned his head away from the human and looked over behind him to see one of his Spearow flying away. He glared at the fleeing form in fury.

"You dare to fly away?!" he cawed in rage, "Your action will only bring misfortune and disgrace to you and any kindred that-"

*Crash-BOOM!!*

"Sir!" one of his subjects cried out, frightened.

"What is it-"

Whatever he was about to say next was down by an explosion of light, ear-deafening rings, and unbearable burning of billions upon billions of electricity.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The streets of Viridian City were cleared of people and Pokémon alike as the storm brew. Save for an officer in her post.

Officer Jenny sighed and looked up the storm with a hot mug of coffee. Never was there such a storm this bad as far as she remembered.

She felt something padding her leg and looked down to see her loyal companion, a Growlithe, whimpering in agitation. She smiled and bent down, picking the small 'mon up with one arm as her other's hand occupies the mug.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," she told her Pokémon, giving a reassuring smile to ease its fears, "It's just a measly storm, nothing to worry about,"

*Crash-BOOM!!*

Every glass and ceramic objects shattered in an instant the moment that shockwave came blasting out of nowhere. Jenny hissed in pain as her mug shattered and splattered the still hot coffee through her gloves, almost making her tumble and lose her footing as well as almost dropping the terrified Growlithe.

She looked to the direction it came from, which was Route One, and in all her life as a police officer, nothing had prepared her to the horrifying and mystifying sight before her.

In the distance, the storm brew ever wilder than ever. Clouds swirling in a single spiral, thunder strikes whipping like a rampaging angry beast, and wind blowing harder than a high level Pidgeot.

But the greatest upon all of them is the gigantic yellow pillar piercing the center like a giant beacon in the size of great Arceus.

It was terrifying, and yet Officer Jenny felt a sense of calmness at the sight despite the adrenaline fear in her heart.

Unknown to her, her Growlithe had gained a different sense from this. Loyalty, resolute, and his absolute trust for his owner. Like an unknown oath that came to him, swearing him to keep it.

All around Kanto, this was not left unfelt by some humans and Pokémon. All around, this single pillar caused a lot of changes in a single day. The routes that were once familiar had shifted, lives were and are about to change, and the journey they knew will lead to a path of uncharted discoveries.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ash opened his eyes and sat up from laying on the grassy hillside. He looked up the sky as a strange feeling had alerted his senses.

"So, that newcomer of another universe managed to succeed the one thing that you have oh so poorly failed to do,"

Ash scowls and looked behind him.

There aren't that many things that could sour his mood for a long period of time, may it be a person or a Pokémon. This one is neither.

There, standing on his shadow, is a figure of pure black void darkness in the shape of Ketchum himself. Yellow eye sockets stared to him with mockery and pleasure, a yellow crescent smile sneered over the figure's face.

"Why don't you just bother someone else," it wasn't a question, Ash is really not in the mood whenever this thing shows up. And by whenever, he means always.

"You know it doesn't work that way, Ashy boy," the being-a shadow as Ash called-mocked, which it smiled wider when Ash retorted with a scowl, "You can't get rid of me that easily, as you know well enough what I am to you,"

"Just leave me alone!" Ash snapped, much to the shadow figure's amusement.

"Alright," it said, body sinking into the ground, "But even if I am gone, the truth still remains~,"

It's let out a distorted laughter before Ash was by himself again. The boy looked down in the ground in anger, before taking a deep breath and exhaling calmly.

"It's not worth it, Ketchum," he told himself, then looking up to the sky as he imagined the faces of one best friend and one teen, "Pikachu, Caden, be true to your bonds, and may you reach far as I would be,"