Pikachu growled at the man towering over him and Misty. He was the only one to protect her at the moment. Her Staryu is still recovering, Goldeen won't be able to fight in this environment for obvious reasons, and he has no clue if her Starmie is with her or not.
"Pesky rodent, I already had enough trouble with you and your filthy pack," Riot said, unloading the empty shell as he aims his weapon on them, "Not only that, but that brat had to make a mockery of me! ME! The Mightiest Rocket Elite of the organization!"
Pikachu, while the situation was dire, mentally rolled his eyes. It was always the bad guys and their precious monologues, he thought. And he can say that those Team Rocket trio are a bit more better than the Luke Cage wannabe.
"I'll deal with the runt-"
*Click!*
"-After I get rid of you two," the man smiled sadistically, finger on the trigger.
Pikachu stared in petrified fear as the bullet whizzed out of the muzzle, heading towards his head. It zoomed towards him closer, closing in a meter, an inch-
-Then it froze in the air.
Pikachu stood there, unmoving and unblinking, for a few heartbeats. Then his mind finally caught up to what was going on.
Reluctantly, he blinked. And the bullet was still suspending in the air.
He blinked again. Still the same.
He stepped back a paw. Still in the air.
His heart soon cooled down from the moment of paralyzed adrenaline and slowly looked at the bullet at a few angles. Faintly, he could see some smoke and an almost visible ring behind the bullet. It didn't take a genius to realize the bullet wasn't just suspending in the air. It was as if time itself has stopped.
And that was apparently the state of everything else.
Looking behind him, the electric rodent sees Misty stuck in a horrified and desperate look, arms stretching towards Pikachu himself. The stature of the Gym leader made his stomach churn at what could have been a devastating outcome. Pikachu then turned to the Rocket with a disgusted glare, who was frozen with the same sickening grin and a smoking weapon.
Checking around, he caught sight of Rattata, bruised up and tired, looking up helplessly at the giant stump foot of a similarly malicious Aggron who was about to crush her. To the hall behind his left, he saw Nurse Joy and Chansey looking in horror with the former's hands covering her mouth in fear.
The whole situation made him think of Dialga, making him ask himself WHY would the embodiment of time would interfere. Then someone else came to his mind.
He looked to his right in worry when he recalled Caden's state, whipping his head quick to where he last saw him.
Golden light waving all around the boy like a cloak weaved from auroras wasn't what he was expecting to see. Nor the sight of him standing without a scratch, not frozen in time, and golden hues hazing from his eyes. A frozen Spearow was still in his arms as the two contacted eye to eye.
After a few seconds of silence, the boy shut his eyes, and an expression of calm concentration came over his face. As one, the golden weaves illuminated all together, then, through Ash's body, Caden stretches out his right palm where the waves of light-
No, they were Auras.
Pikachu watches in fascination as the auras coiled and slithered across the boy's arm, condensing into almost thin threads, all the way in front of the palm where they meet. They entwined and chain links sprouted and starts popping up one by one, until the meet Pikachu. However, there was something odd about them:
They weren't connected.
The trail of chains were all missing links between them, spaces between that seemed to be meant for a different set of links. For Pikachu, it was obvious those links would be coming from himself but...
That leaves the question of "How?".
Pikachu looks back to his trainer, whose eyes were reopened and was now looking back to his own once again. It made the mouse think back to the short time he had with Caden's ten-year-old self. That one simple night, being around the boy was, in literal sense, a chance of a lifetime for both of them. A trust they both gained from one another.
Pikachu looked down to one of his forepaws, looking at its open palm. He then clenches it to a fist, confidence and motivation swelled in him as he looks up to his current partner with shining eyes and an equally small but burning smile.
"Let's do this, Caden," Pikachu said, then punching out that same fist to the chain, making contact with the end link. The missing links starts appearing, slowly completing the chain.
The boy mirrored the smile, "Yeah," he said, as the final link locked itself in, "Let's go, Pikachu,"
Power swelled up in Pikachu's very core, static courses out and around his body. It was something almost familiar to him, but that would be for later dates. Only one thing came up to the rodent's mind.
'The Rockets are absolutely...'
Pikachu soon found himself having difficulties on finding a good word to compromise the F one.
_______________________________________________________
Rattata couldn't move over three different reasons: fatigue, pain, and petrified fear.
Aggron loomed over the weak vermin with a grinning face. It rose a foot right above her, savoring the look of inevitable horror in her eyes.
There was the ring of gunfire.
Then absolute pain pierced through the Steel-Rock Dual Type's raised leg.
"BLOODY GIRATINA!" the behemoth screamed as it brought its leg down in a mighty thud, missing the Rattata and was now down on its knee.
Riot turned around to see his Pokémon holding its leg in pain. He turned back to the Pikachu, whose tail shined in silver sheen.
The Electric Type was smirking at him.
This made the man scowl and aim his gun again at the mouse-
His head jerked upward-left, along with his right cheek sinking inwardly and a lot of teeth chipping off. He went flying to Aggron and both tumbled down to the ground.
Rattata was speechless at the spectacle. She just watched the Pikachu launched the human with one Dynamic Punch.
"Hey, can you stand?"
Caught surprise, she looked up to see the electric rodent's trainer kneeling down behind her, a hand stretched out to her while the other holds a mystified staring Spearow. She can't blame him, a human with glowing eyes is something unexpected.
Rattata wobbly stands up and weakly and slowly crawls up to the hand.
Caden smiles and stands up, turning around and walking to Nurse Joy. Upon reaching her, she carefully hands the two to her.
"Get them treated, please," he said, then turns back and walks towards the battle.
"You little piece of-!" Riot thrusted a punch down towards Pikachu, which the rodent casually feints to the side.
Pikachu leaped back to make some distances, the smirk in his face not faltering. His body felt light, yet powerful. His senses were heightened as well, his electricity being a sixth sense like a Detect ability. He made a high leap and backflipped in the air as Aggron's tail went pass under him.
Upside-down, he sees Aggron reaching a claw at him. And within reach, time slowed. And yet, Pikachu still kept on moving unaffected.
He used the arm as a leverage and scurried on it, coming towards the 'mon's head.
And used Volt Tackle head on.
Aggron had little to no time to react as he found himself receiving both a headache and thousands of electricity coursing through him before being launched away.
The known Rocket Trio, who were finally waking up, only had time to mumble about what happened before their life flashed before their eyes and soon squashed under the heavy weight of the Steel and Rock type, back to unconsciousness.
The only Rocket member left standing was quaking in rage. His mightiest tool in this infiltration was taken down by a mere, insolent pest!? He was about to take an action when...
"Pikachu, go for the Nervous System,"
A hit in the back and sudden surge all over his body, then all but conscience shutting down and he suddenly met the floor face first. He realized every part of his body weren't responding as he desperately tries to get them moving, but to no avail. all he could do was stared at the ground in a sideways view.
Then a pair of yellow feet came to view. With mustered strength, he moved his eyes up shakingly to meet the insolent rat smirking smugly on him. This was soon followed with a pair of jeans coming behind the rodent.
"Some Elite you turned out to be," Caden said, voice holding no sarcasm or arrogance. Nothing but an aura of calmness and a tone of disappointment as he looks down at the fallen man who looks at him in hatred, "Pikachu, Iron Tail,"
With no remorse, Pikachu hit the man's thick skull in one fell swoop. Which may or may not have caused the ground beneath the man's head to crack, as well as leave a big lump on the man's head.
"I sometimes forget how much of a cold heart you can be," Caden sighed, as Pikachu just seemed nonchalant of his remarks.
"K-kid?"
Caden turned his head towards Misty who was staring at him with a gaping mouth, unknown of his golden-glowing eyes. Caden suddenly remembered that Misty never knew, nor he ever told his name the entire day. Or at least, Ash's name specifically.
"Oh, right," he excused, "My name's actually-"
"GROOON!"
Both humans looked behind the boy long enough to see a white beam of light the sized of a yoga ball coming towards them in a matter of seconds. Misty let out a scream and closed her eyes.
Then there was a sound of a heavy wham and crackling to her ears, but not a sensation of being obliterated by a Hyperbeam.
Misty peeked open an eye in hesitation, before both eyes opened in shock and awe of what she was seeing.
She saw the boy facing the Hyperbeam undeterred behind the shimmering diamond-patterned yellow barrier of a Light Screen. In-between was the Pikachu who had his small paws facing front, signifying the Light Screen was his.
Irritation gleamed in the Pokémon's eyes and Aggron pushes more power to the attack. Still, the barrier didn't budge as the seconds passed by.
The Hyperbeam soon faltered to nothing.
Aggron was out of breath no sooner it ended, panting and sweating. The entire humiliation of a fight took so much from him. Not forgetting its injured leg, Aggron only has one more trick up its sleeve.
"I suggest you give up already,"
It looked to the insolent electric rodent, barrier still up, and let out a dark chuckle.
"Give up?" the dark chuckle rose to a roaring laughter as the energy of Outrage starts surrounding its body, its power coursing all over so much that the Steel and Rock Type could stand on both feet without the hindering pain as his eyes blazed red in both power and unbridled rage, "You, a meek pest, think you can take me down and tell me to GIVE UP?!"
With the ground beneath the armored beast's feet crumbling under the pressure, it lurched towards the group like a rocket with ill-violent intentions as it roars.
"DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH!!"
"Pikachu, barrier down," Caden said calmly.
Misty was shocked at the boy's command as the Light Screen disappeared, much to the incoming Aggron's twisted amusement.
"YOUR TRAINER IS MORE STUPID THAN I-"
"Valiant Bolt,"
__________________________________________
Officer Jenny's bike drifted to a halt a few distance away from the Viridian Center with five cop cars forming a barrier behind her. From the sidecar, her Growlithe growled directly at the Pokémon Center as the lead officer steps off her bike and turned to the other cops coming out of their vehicles and taking position behind the doors of the cars.
"Alright men!" she spoke in a commander's voice, standing straight with her hands behind her back, "There is a dangerous criminal wreaking havoc in that Pokémon Center,"
She points at the building behind her without breaking a glance, "Based on what the local Nurse Joy has told us, this person is a man claimed themselves as a Rocket Elite. We don't know anything else about him, but Joy said he has a powerful Pokémon. An Aggron to be precise,"
As she speaks, she didn't notice her Growlithe acting differently. The Fire Type had stopped growling and started sniffing the air. Then his eyes widen and ducked down in the sidecar.
"Be on guard, all of you!" Officer Jenny turned around, seemingly ready to move, "For this will be a difficult-"
The building's rooftop and front entrance exploded out, followed by a strong aftershock and an electromagnetic wave that came bursting outward.
All the officers were thrown off their feet, car windows and lights all shattered in an instant. Trees and other greeneries were blown but not swayed by the gust of wind, but still awakens the slumbering inhabitants. The wave extended all throughout the city as all lights and electricity went out, leaving the city in total darkness.
Then all went silent.
Then all lights soon came back to the city.
Officer Jenny was left confused and speechless as all police force were unsure of how to react to what just happened.
*CRASH!*
Screams and yelps rang around the officers when a heavily injured and burnt Aggron fell from the sky out of nowhere and crashed down on one of the cars. Its dead-white eyes revealed it to be unconscious.
"Is this the Aggron?" one of the officers timidly asked.
Officer Jenny couldn't reply, still staring at the unconscious Pokémon with disbelief. She came out of her trance when her Growlithe barked and she turned around to see him running towards the Pokémon Center. She tries calling out to him and soon runs off to catch him.
She watches as her partner went in the building, which was powering through its back-up power. Although, some of the lights had shattered as she came through what used to be the entrance door.
Inside was an absolute mess.
The tiled floor in the lobby were covered with cracks and craters, some seemingly bigger than others. A lot of the support beams were either damaged but still holding, or clearly broken off. What's more noticeable were a few things. One, the giant hole on the ceiling. Two, the slight fizzle of static in the air as she can feel her hair reacting to the atmosphere.
And three, a wide, charred, and very decimated floor near the reception desk. And at the center, seemingly unaffected, were the Cerulean Gym Leader, the local Nurse Joy, a bulking man burnt like the Aggron on the ground...
And a very familiar unconscious raven-haired boy and a similar state Pikachu with a shattered lightbulb on its head.