Smokescreen covered the entrance of the Pokémon Center as three individual figures walked through it with cool confidence. Two were a pair of a man and a woman. The man had blue shoulder-length hair and green eyes, he wears black boots, gloves, and an inner shirt under a long-sleeved white one and tucked in under his white pants and purple belt. The woman, on the other hand, has long red hair which was stiffly straight behind her until the curl at the end, outfit consisting of a black top, the similar gloves and boots, and a white skirt and a white outer-top, long-sleeved shirt. Many people would notice and recognized the big red R insignia on them as the intruders strolled in. That was not the case, however, as the hall was completely empty.
"What is this? Not a single living soul welcoming us for our arrival?" the woman huffed in mild disappointment with arms crossed.
"Indeed, a very bittering sight," the man agreed, showing no care of the situation in actuality.
Just as he said that, around the corner Nurse Joy and Misty soon came to the scene before halting in by the counter and tensely on guard.
"Who are you?" Misty demanded, "And what are you planning to do?"
"Oh?" the mysterious woman quirked, "An eager audience wanting to see our play?"
"If it's a stage they want, then see it they may!" the man shouted, throwing a blue rose as the duo started their familiar motto:
"Prepare for trouble!"
"And make it double!"
"To protect the world from devastation!"
"To unite all people within our nation!"
"To denounce the evils of truth and love!"
"To extend our reach to the stars above!"
"Jessie!"
"And James!"
"Team Rocket, blast off to the speed of light!"
"Surrender now, or prepare to fight!"
"Me-owth! Dat's right!" spoke a cat Pokémon leaping out of the smoke and landing between the two pairs, standing on hind legs and claws unsheathe.
"Team Rocket?" Misty muttered to herself- not having the time to be surprised of a talking Pokémon- then pointed an accusing finger at them, "You must be the Pokémon thieves Officer Jenny was speaking of, aren't you?!"
"Right on the money, little girl," Jessie said with a smirk, twiddling a finger at them, "And we are here to take some of this place's most rare and valuable Pokémon,"
At the words, Nurse Joy took a step forward and spread out her arms defensively, "I'm sorry, but the only ones you will find here are sick and weak Pokémon so you are wasting your time," she said.
The trio didn't seemed faze by this as they spoke back, "That may be, but we wouldn't be surprised if we found some rare and valuable Pokémon in this junky place," Jessie sneered.
"So han' dem over!" the talking Meowth threatened.
Misty took the frontline and placing the pink-haired nurse behind her, putting herself between them with a red and white Pokéball in hand.
"Not gonna happen!" the young Gym Leader said and tossed her Pokéball up in the air, "Misty calls Staryu!"
The metal ball opened with a pop and a beam of blue and white light poured out and to the tiled floor, molding and shifting into shape. The light burst off of the now solid form of a brown starfish-like creature, a golden disc plate widely covering its base and an adoring red gem at the center. It screeched out and took a battle stance...well, as visible as a battle stance a Staryu can do.
"You wish to battle us?" Jessie smiled mockingly as a purple snake slithered next to her,
"And with a weak looking Staryu no less," James added, a floating purple sphere with gas emitting from the small craters of its body and a hazard skull symbol on its chest right below its blank smiling face levitated beside him.
"I'll show you!" Misty growled as the battle commenced.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Cade groaned as he opened his eye, ears blared by the sounds of alarms.
'Alarms?'
"-POKÉMON THIEVES IN THE CITY. PLEASE BE ON-"
'Is Linnie watching on my computer again in 3 AM in the morning?' was the first thing that popped in Cade's mind. Many of the orphan kids would watch or play in his room, which are fully related to Pokémon. Linnie, a seven year old little girl, is among those who would sneak in his room and play certain episodes, all without a care of using earplugs or lowering the volume.
"Linnie," he groaned as he sat up and rubbed a drowsy eye, "What did I told you about touching my stuff? I thought we..."
Cade trailed off at the sight of what seemed to be a hospital room. Any sleep in his system soon diminished as he looked to the far left where three luggage rested on the table, one among is the familiar green backpack and neatly folded pair of clothes.
After a moment of silence, Cade, using Ash's body, brought up his hands to his face and groans the second time.
"You have got to be joking," Cade said, muffled under his hands.
And yet...
Slowly, Cade pulled his hands away and looked down to his palms. Oddly, he felt eased, as if a weight on his shoulder was lifted off of him. While the same idea of taking the place of the young Ketchum and everything else onwards still feels wrong to him, it didn't seemed to bother him as much as before.
"...I don't know if this feeling is relieving or terrifying," he said out loud with a straight face.
"...aaa..."
Cade was pulled out of his thought by a soft groaning to his right. He looked to the direction to see Pikachu sat up, body swaying drowsily with a lightbulb ridiculously tied on the mouse's head. The Electric-Type shook his head, blinking in front of nothing, then looked to the boy staring at him.
Then an explosion was heard outside that caused both to turn to the recovery room's entrance door, which was widely ajar. Both of the in-bed patience see a Chansey hurriedly ran past the doorway, only to backpedal and turn to them with a reassuring smile.
"Do not fret, just remain in the room and don't come out. Everything is under control!" she said-which was mostly understood by Pikachu and for Cade it was more consist of parts of the Chansey's name-before rushing to the sound of thuds and... splashes of water?
Cade couldn't help but feel that he was forgetting something, but what?
Then it came to him.
'Wait, isn't Team Rocket supposed to invade Viridian's Pokémon Center?' the boy thought, eyes closed in concentration of his memories of the dozen times scene he had watched. Then his eyes opened in horrification, 'Oh no,'
There are certain things Cade knew about the notorious Rocket trio, things that he had seen since their encounter with Ash and Pikachu. But now...
The sounds outside of which Caden now recognized as an on-going battle now started to make sense. He threw off the blanket and placed his bare feet on the cold floor. Having to stand up from the right side of the bed, he stared at the electric mouse whose eyes seemed to bore the same burning fire of the Pikachu in his dreams. Though, he felt it wasn't.
Because both Pikachu in the dream and the gaze of the Pikachu in front of him seemed to hold that one thing that the boy had seen in everything Ash and his forever partner had gone through: a sense of trust. A trust that Ash earned in his selfless act to save Pikachu, yet Cade did something that he himself deemed the opposite to his own eyes. Yet, that same trust was now being offered to him, like a special one-of-a-kind gift that he felt like he didn't deserve to have.
Cade hesitated for a second, eyes closed with unsure feelings if he could really accept such thing.
"Pikachu..." Cade shakily and softly spoke, the sounds of the battle still going on and echoing in the quiet room, "I-"
"Ka-chu,"
Caden's eyes opened at the voice of the electric mouse, an odd sensation swirling in him at those two syllables the Electric-Type spoke.
Pikachu looked at the boy before, a small smile crossing his face as the mouse pointed a single yellow finger at the boy.
"Pika-pi," Pikachu shook his head, "Ka-chu," Pikachu nodded.
Cade stared in confusion, eyes temporarily looking down from the mouse as he wondered what Pikachu was saying.
'Wait, Pika-pi is usually the Poké-speech in Pikachu for...Ash,' Cade's eyes slowly went back up to the smiling Pikachu, speechless as his mind slowly pieces things together. 'He shook his head when he spoke Ash's name. But Ka-chu... he nodded at that...'
Ka-chu... the word almost made him chuckle at how it almost sounded like-
"Cade..." he spoke out loud, dawning eyes growing wide. Somehow it sounded fitting, and sensible in his mind. But it couldn't....
However, Pikachu's growing smile as he gave the boy a simple nod took away all his doubts.
If Cade's mind was running through a Window's server, it would abruptly stop, buffering, and soon coming to that error screen. His kneeled down to Pikachu's height as he still tries to understand it all. To be honest, how would you think he would react? Pikachu, Ash's Pikachu, the iconic and lovable and certain times very over-powered Electric-Type, just spoke out his name. But how? How did-
A gentle paw on his cheek pulled Cade out of his daze.
Pikachu could feel tears watering under his eyes. He didn't know why, but the situation seemed to be the reason. Or maybe it was the sympathy for Cade's loss, the pain of seeing the boy hurting himself for something he didn't have control of. Or maybe they were tears of joy now that he had reunite with him now after they were forcedly separated that one night. Or tears of relief seeing that he was alright.
Caden stared to the Electric-Type's eyes, founding those sense of familiarity rising back up from deep in his mind as his eyes faltered down. Memories of when he was ten came to his mind, that one night when he had moved into the orphanage. He remembered crying himself to sleep with Caretaker Reina with him, he remembered waking up in the middle of the night at the feeling of an unusual weight on his chest, he remembered catching sight of...
"A Pikachu," He whispered, which was still heard by the mouse, "I remembered...meeting a Pikachu, a real living Pikachu, in my room that one night...I remembered spending the whole night, watching episodes ad playing games with it-no, him, from cards, figures, to sound-muted video games, and..."
Pikachu listened. The Pokémon was finding it difficult to keep himself from bursting a dam and launching himself to the boy but he held firm. Dear Arceus, Pikachu didn't think himself as an emotional type but with this human before him he was starting to think otherwise.
Cade continued to rant about of the memory, lost in his own world. He continued on about him and the mouse in his memories. He paused when he looked up to the Pikachu before him. He saw tears leaking out as he saw how the Electric-Type tried and failed to even stop it from coming out. This finally made his mind caught up with why.
"Y-you're...him," Cade slowly croaked out, a face of slight disbelief spread across his face, "You're that Pikachu that I-"
He didn't manage to continue when a very loud and heavy crashing sound finally caught both of their attention, causing them to remember what was happening right about now.
"Staryu, no!" they heard Misty shouting in horror.
"Chansey!" they heard Nurse Joy gasped loudly.
Cade couldn't help but mentally smack his himself on the forehead for forgetting about Team Rocket's infiltration. However, something at the back of his mind was telling him that Misty should've got it all under control since it was only those trio. So why was her Staryu and surprisingly Nurse Joy's Chansey defeated? In all odds, they should've won.
'Unless something changed,' he bitterly thought, 'Looks like that whole Butterfly Effect thing was turning out to be true,'
Cade needed to do something. And staying in the room isn't that something.
'Ash intuitions ladies and gentlemen,' he humorously thought to an invisible audience, before taking the matters seriously.
Cade stood back up to his feet with a heart filled with slight trepidation but filled with determination to face this unknown. He still didn't like how he was forced to be in this situation, but he'll be damn if he let these crooks get their victory.
A strange tingling came to his right hand, but he dismissed it. As of the moment, Misty and Nurse Joy needed extra firepower to turn the tables. With his mind set to a goal, he turned to extend an arm to the mouse, their eyes meeting one another, and he asked the one question he never thought he would say in front of Ash's Pikachu...and now his partner.
"Are you ready...buddy?"