Author's Note: Just to let you know, this is the last chapter of the story.
Ash and Pikachu, the only Pokemon who refused any treatment, sat in the empty lobby of the Pokemon center. It was well after 10 and Brock, Misty, and Tracey had gone to see to Professor Oak at the hospital. Pikachu sat on the edge of the chair, letting his legs dangle in the air and swinging them to entertain himself. Ash sat with his feet in his chair, his eyes barely clearing his knees as he stared, feeling empty and drained, at the wall across from him.
"Y'know...this totally was not your fault." Pikachu finally said. Ash continued to stare at the wall before answering, still without looking.
"Yes it is."
"No, it's not." Pikachu said, getting to his feet and standing on the chair. "Remember how I told you that some Pokemon are evil? Well, that Pokemon was evil and CRAZY, if you didn't happen to notice. I mean...I didn't even see that coming. Kadabra was so far off the deep end, I'm surprised she could even see the other side of the pool." He sat down again. "Y'know...in a manner of speaking..."
"Pikachu..." Ash said, grimly. "Please....just be quiet for a bit."
They sat in awkward silence, Ash still scowling at nothing and Pikachu trying to find away to cheer his best friend up. He couldn't think of anything, so he sat in silence too, feeling almost as guilty for not being able to help as Ash.
"I'm sorry," Pikachu said, standing up again, "but I just can't do this. I'm not going to sit here and watch you beat yourself up over something that clearly was not your fault."
"It was my idea to get all my Pokemon together in one place. It was my idea to set them up to fight the most dangerous monster I had ever met just so I could talk with it." Ash snapped his head at Pikachu. "So I could have a nice, friendly little chat with it. I knew the risks. I knew what I was getting into. Why didn't I stop it?" He asked, a rhetorical question. "Because I guess I'm more like that Kadabra than I thought."
Pikachu stood glaring, his stance wide and his hands balled up into little fists. He backed up and poised himself ready to lunge as his tail glowed white.
"Iron Tail." Ash heard Pikachu think to himself. He had just enough time to whirl around in his seat before he was slammed bodily off his chair and sent sliding across the tile floor on his back. Pikachu sprinted over and jumped on Ash's chest, grabbing the front of his shirt in his fist.
"When I said I wasn't going to do this, I mean that I'm not going to deal with this kind of shit from you!" He shouted. "You think that you're the only one who's done something wrong? You think you're special? You think you're the only one with any damn problems!? When I said it wasn't your fault, I MEANT IT WASN'T YOUR FAULT! I'm not going to sit here and listen to you bitch and moan and cut yourself while I bust my ass trying to make you feel better!" He pulled Ash's head off the floor. "Here's the summary: pull yourself together and stop complaining about how you're the only person who's ever made an uh-oh on the carpet. No one cares." Pikachu let go, letting Ash's head bang against the floor. He walked back over to the bench, jumped up back to his seat, and laid down with his hands over his eyes to block the glare from the ceiling light.
Ash sat up, astonished, rubbing his sore head. He stood up mindlessly and sat down on the nearest bench across from Pikachu, mulling over what he had said. Meanwhile, his Pokemon continued to fume, half out of anger and half out of making Ash learn his lesson on his own.
They sat in silence for a good while. Neither of them felt any want or need to break the calm, empty quiet of the Pokemon Center. They could hear some of the doctors talking in the back room and occasionally the moan of an injured Pokemon, though most of them were already asleep. Hopefully.
A single chuckle escaped Ash. This grew into more until he was quietly laughing to himself. Pikachu pretended not to notice. Ash stood up and walked to the bench facing him. His footsteps sounded much louder than they usually would have. He sat down next to Pikachu, who was still lying on his back and was still trying to ignore him. Ash laughed again and rubbed his Pokemon's head, though not enough to cause the same problem he had before. Pikachu flailed in alarm and threw Ash's hand off of his head, turned, and glared at him, feeling slightly violated.
"Thanks." Ash said, smiling.
Pikachu flashed a quick grin himself and stood up. "About time." He said, stretching. "I wasn't going to wait here all night for you to wrap your head around the fact that you're a wimp." He looked at Ash. "I would have returned your pity-party invitation too, y'know."
"Good. Because you weren't invited. I don't want some hyperactive little 9-volt eating all the chips and salsa."
"Hyperactive little 12-volt, thank you very much." Pikachu turned away, bashfully. "Glad you're okay." he quickly said.
"I should be telling that to you. Kadabra wasn't trying to kill me."
"She wanted to, but you know how these things go. Somebody tries to mind-rape me, you go 'Pikachu! No!' Then another Pokemon comes out of nowhere and distracts the one attacking, and then we both team up and beat its ass."
"That's basically what happened today, too."
"Yeah, except our Pokemon in shining armor usually doesn't kill the aggressor. I'm not even sure what happened, to be completely honest."
"Togepi used Metronome and sucked that Kadabra through a black hole."
"WOW. I guess she didn't know what hit her."
"Who? Togepi?"
"No, the Kadabra."
"Why'd you call it a she?"
"Because....she was a female?"
"It sounded male to me. No...it was male to me! It spoke in a male voice! I heard it!"
"But I heard it with a woman's voice!"
"Then....what does that mean...."
"I don't even wanna know..." Pikachu paused. "Dude...that is creepy."
"No kidding. So what did he-she-it do to you, anyway?"
"What, you think I know? I'm not the one who has a CB radio for thoughts."
"Your analogies are getting worse."
"It's been a long day....Anyway, all I know is that when Kadabra raised her hand-"
"His."
"Whatever. When Kadabra raised its hand, every muscle in my body felt like it was tearing apart from the inside. Not only that, but a whole bunch of other horrible sensations."
"Like..."
"Like the one part where it felt like all the hair on my body had suddenly become sentient and made of metal and they were stabbing me all over. Once, he-she-it made me think that I was being torn in half. Slowly. Also, I heard things. Like...voices. It was weird. I heard someone say 'You're worthless! You're damaged goods! You shouldn't have left him!' Stuff like that. I don't need to tell you that it sucked."
"What was that last part?"
"What, were you not listening?"
"What was that last voice you heard talking about?"
"Hm...Can you ask me that later?"
"Why? We've got plenty of time. The room is empty and you don't even have to say a word."
"If you're coming onto me, I'll have you know I'm an expensive date."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll go to a fancy dinner and a movie. Now tell me. You're hiding something, but you're not doing a good job at it."
"What...exactly do you wanna know?"
"First of all, what was that thing about 'You shouldn't have left him'? Also, when you were playing Drill Sargent Tough Love on my chest, you sounded like you guilty about something...What happened, Pikachu?"
Pikachu was silent for a while, staring at the floor and trying to consolidate his thoughts.
"Well....it....Okay, listen. This is my own personal little sob-story, alright? This is private, heavy shit for me that I don't like talking about with anybody. I get word from any of the other Pokemon that you've been spreading this around, I'll end you so fast your soul won't even know what to do with itself. Tu comprende?"
"Uh...Si?"
"Muy bueno. This isn't the saddest story in the world, but its the cause of a lot of bad scars. It all came from my first trainer. He was-"
"Wait, first trainer? I thought I was your first trainer!"
"No, I had one master before you. This was years ago, man. Have I not told you this?"
"You couldn't talk."
"Yes I could! You just have piece-of-crap human ears."
"Years...how old are you?"
Pikachu thought for a moment. "Like...16...17?"
"What!? Pikachu, you're older than I am!"
"Yeah, but that doesn't even begin to make a difference with this story. Anyway, I had a trainer before you. I don't remember his name but I remember his face. Y'know how humans with dark hair usually have dark eyes? This guy was weird. He had jet-black hair, but really bright blue eyes. I couldn't ever look at him during a battle or I'd get distracted. I mean, they were pretty much white from far away. Creepy.
"Anyway, old blue-eyes was ambitious. He wanted to join up with the Elite Four. He always talked about it like it was some kind of given. I don't know whether he was psyching himself up to work harder or if he was really that delusional. His big plan of being one of the top Four trainers in all of the region was to get as many Pokemon as he could. He set up a storage box at his hometown Pokemon Center and would send back, like, dozens of Pokemon a week. They had a whole storage room dedicated to his mountain of Pokeballs. Of course, he was allowed to do this because of Mumsie and Dadsie's money." Pikachu rubbed his fingers together.
"When I say this guy was a prick, I mean it. He had no respect for the Pokemon that he caught and 'raised.' They talked about him like he was a god that descended from some upper level of heaven to show a half-dozen mediocre Pokemon how to suck just a little less. I hated the guy from the get-go. When I was wild, I remember being scared of humans in general. Mostly due to lack of information."
"Hang on, I have a quick question. You and Bulbasaur talked about being wild before. Is there that big a difference between being a wild Pokemon and a trained one?"
"Well...YEAH. For us, being caught by a trainer is like humans going through puberty, from what I understand anyway. It kind of sucks, but it ultimately is for the better. Your temper goes down, you start to gain a little more control over your abilities, and you can sometimes feel yourself becoming less savage. It's weird, but puts a new perspective on stuff."
"Really? I wouldn't have thought it was like that."
"Yeah, but here's something else. Y'know how Pokeballs work?"
"No...do you?"
"Yeah, from experience, anyway. Pokeballs work by overriding any free will that the Pokemon previously had in the wild, as long as that trainer is skilled enough. We're basically slaves. Of course, we usually don't realize it."
"Wh-WHAT!?" Ash shouted, his eyes as wide as headlights. "SERIOUSLY!?"
"YEAH. I know."
"How...do you know? I mean...did you not have any free will? Do you have free will now?"
"When I would battle, I would do whatever this trainer told me to. I hated this bastard. I sincerely wanted him to die, but there was jack-shit I could do about it! I would have to try and FORCE myself not to use the move when he told me to, but I would anyway. My body was not under my control anymore."
"That's horrible...have I been doing that the whole time?" he laid a hand on the empty Pokeballs on his belt.
"Probably, but I can't exactly fault you for it. You didn't know and you had good intentions, at any rate."
"That must be why you hate Pokeballs so much."
"That's a big part, but that's not all. My trainer was a very selfish person. He didn't care about any of his Pokemon. Just thought of us as big, colorful, dangerous toys. He would put me back in my Pokeball and would let me out again for huge spanses of time. I used to extend battles for as long as I could so I wouldn't have to go back into that damn Pokeball.
"That's why me being older than you doesn't really make a difference. A Pokeball puts you in suspended animation. You go in and you come out. It feels like thirty seconds, but it could have been a week. There was one point where, after a battle, he put me back into my Pokeball. When I came out, it had been 8 months since that last battle.
"But, that's still not all. I haven't gotten to the last straw, yet. See, all the other Pokemon completely idolized this trainer. I was the only one who didn't. I knew what he was doing to us. I saw how he really acted. It was like some bizarre pod-people situation and I was the only one unaffected. That's what made it so bad that I didn't have any physical power to do anything.
"Later on, this trainer caught an Electabuzz. This Pokemon felt exactly the same kind of resentment that I did. We kind of became friends-by-proxy because of that. We figured out that the Pokeball mind-control device-thing doesn't necessarily work as well on electric Pokemon. It still overrides our ability to rebel, but it doesn't rob us of our thoughts altogether."
Ash suddenly stood up, his hands balled into fists. He walked briskly over to the trashcan, took all the Pokeballs from his belt, and threw them into the can with a loud clang. He walked back and sat down next to Pikachu.
"Sorry. I couldn't listen to much more of this with those things on my waist."
"I appreciate that. A LOT. Anyway, Electabuzz and I became good friends. He was the only Pokemon I knew that had any grasp of what kind of wrong was going on here. We talked about any possibility of escape or rebellion. Electabuzz knew what he wanted, but he was more content with letting the future roll into him than going to get it. We came up with dozens of plans, but none of them came to fruition. I was only, like, 4 at the time, so I just listened to him. Then, one day, we got called back into our Pokeballs. After what felt like a few minutes, I came out again, three damn years after I had been put in. Electabuzz had been traded away for an Eevee, which the trainer eventually evolved into a Vaporeon. I felt sick to my stomach. The only friend I had in the entire world was gone so this son of a bitch would have another toy to play around with until he got tired. I was fed up with it. I took a dive in that battle so I wouldn't have to listen to that trainer's voice or take another single glance at those damn blue eyes of his.
"Then, it happened. A few months later, the trainer found yet another Pokemon that he wanted. He didn't have enough Pokeballs to catch it with, so he let me out of mine while he used it to catch whatever Pokemon it was that he wanted. He told me to follow him and I did. He told me to battle and I did. He dropped his wallet and told me to pick it up for him. I DIDN'T. I didn't even realize what was going on at first. He just told me over his shoulder to pick up his wallet. Like I was his damn maid or something. I stared at him, thinking about how much I hated him, for a few seconds before I realized that I wasn't automatically bending down to hand him the wallet. I waited for him to tell me again, this time yelling. I still didn't listen. I looked up at him, both excited and scared shitless about what I was gonna do next. He turned and yelled at me as loud as he could to 'pick up that wallet.' Without thinking, I shocked him. I was too scared to do anything else. It was barely enough to charge a battery, but it was enough to charge me. I realized what I had done and did it again, this time bigger. Before I knew it, I was sending 10,000 volts through this son of a bitch while he twitched and seizured on the ground like a fish out of water.
"After that, I ran. I didn't even know where I was. I just hauled-tail off the road and bolted. I turned back to see the trainer as a small blot on the road. I didn't want to see any more of him, so I just kept running. I ran so hard that a few hours later, I passed out in the middle of the woods. I didn't even black out. I was just running, having just as much energy as ever, and the next thing I knew, I was on my back, facing the sky. After that, I wandered to the nearest city and bummed there for a while, kind of re-integrating with my wild side, so to speak. If you're away from a Pokeball long enough, your self-control eventually comes back.
"So I lived off whatever city this was for about a year until I felt like I could become wild again. I go out into the woods to see if I can find any other Pikachu, and what happens? BAM!" Pikachu clapped his hands together. "I'm caught again by the good Professor Oak. He tried to train me like he did with the other Pokemon he was going to hand out to trainers, but I've been out of a Pokeball for so long, I don't listen. He labels me a 'problem Pokemon' and puts me back in the ball. Then you show up, I'm given to you as your partner, and bada-boom, bada-bing. Here we are today."
"Wow. I didn't know any of that happened. I'm sorry..."
Pikachu shrugged. "The past is the past. It's not gonna catch up with me any time soon."
Ash drooped his shoulders, feeling depressed. "I didn't know that all my Pokemon only listen to me because their forced to..."
"...I don't." Pikachu said. "Neither do Squirtle, Charizard, or Bulbasaur. Yeah, you've been doing some inadvertent harm, but you're still forgetting something. We all like you, Ash. I haven't been in a Pokeball since the first day we met and I listen to every word you say. It's not out of some messed-up brainwashing, it's because I think you're a good trainer and...I don't think of you as my trainer." Pikachu shuffled his feet, embarrassed. "I've always just thought of you as...y'know...my friend."
Ash looked at Pikachu, who was blushing. He refused to make eye contact, but his fur started to stand on end from nervous energy. Ash laughed and pulled Pikachu closer.
"I never felt like you were my Pokemon, either." He said. Pikachu struggled against his arm and managed to wriggle out of Ash's grip.
"Okay! We're BFFs for life! We can have our own secret handshake! Just don't strangle me to death inside your bony-ass elbow!" Ash started to laugh and Pikachu soon joined him.
"Wait a minute...what about that thing with Kadabra? The part where the voice said 'You shouldn't have left him.'"
"Yeah? What about it?"
"It just sounds to me like you don't have anything to be guilty about. You didn't do anything wrong." To this, Pikachu looked down at his feet and tapped his fingers together, nervously. His cheeks sparked accidentally.
"You just don't understand the dynamic. When a Pokemon is partnered with a human trainer, there's a kind of bond that exists between the two. When that bond isn't there, there's something seriously wrong. Most Pokemon are wild (obviously), so a chance to go with a trainer is a one-in-a-million shot of doing something with their lives. Actually leaving your trainer is like a human walking out on their mate. I was ostracized by the wild Pokemon. With about a thousand different layers of comprehension for body language, you try hiding the fact that you were a trained Pokemon."
"I didn't know it worked that way."
"Nor were you expected to. We're just as social animals as humans are. Some more and some less so."
The conversation lulled into a comfortable silence. Pikachu stood up quietly, then climbed on top of Ash's shoulders. He plucked that hat off of his head, put it on his own, then went back to his seat. Ash simply sat there, knowing better than to argue.
"So..." Ash said, breaking the tranquility, "what exactly do you think was wrong with Kadabra?"
"Oh come on! Do you have nothing else to talk about!?" Pikachu said exasperatedly. "It's dead! It's dead and still creeping me out! I don't want to even think about that crazy bastard again!"
"It's hard not to think about it! It implanted mind-reading powers in my brain and almost killed all my friends! That's not something I'm gonna forget any time soon!" Ash leaned forward and put his heads in his hands, trying to stay awake. "And that's another thing; it gave me these powers to try and make me more like it. I don't want them to go away, but every time I hear someone's thoughts, I'll be reminded of that Kadabra. I don't...really know what to do."
"How about do nothing?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that the past is the past. Kadabra can't come out of some time-portal-thing for revenge at being dead or anything like that. It can't hurt you anymore. And besides, just because a memory is bad doesn't mean you should just forget it. In fact, embrace it. You saw how open I was about what happened to me. I'm angry at what happened and I'm ashamed of what I did, but that doesn't mean I want to wipe my mind of it all. I'm glad I got the short end of the stick because it's one of the building blocks that make me who I am. We're defined by how we deal with our mistakes, problems, and shortcomings. You don't want to be the kind of person who runs away. I know that."
"Yeah...." Ash thought about it. "Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right." He turned to Pikachu. "That was...really insightful, actually."
"I'm hyperactive, scatterbrained, inattentive, impulsive, oblivious, easily distracted, redundant, redundant, and slightly misanthropic." Pikachu tapped his finger to his head. "But I'm not stupid."
A door opened to the left of the front counter. Both Ash and Pikachu whirled around to look. Squirtle came walking out of the door, limping with a bandage on his head. He was waving through the door with a strained smile on his face.
"Squirtle! Thanks!" As soon as the door closed, the happy expression fell. He irritatedly tore the bandage off of his head and tossed it over his shoulder. "I can't stand it. Every time I come to one of these places, they baby me like I'm a china doll or something. If my arm is dislocated, pop it back into place, give me a lolly if you must, and send me on my effing way!" He fumed.
"You certainly sound recovered."
Squirtle folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. "Please. I'm the last Pokemon to fold under pressure. Give me a little credit."
"Oh pardon me!" Pikachu said, jumping to the floor. He walked before Squirtle and bowed animatedly. "I was not aware that one with your stature would grace us with your presence! We are not worthy!" He dropped to his knees. "May I please be so bold as to ask to kiss your feet!?"
"Ha ha ha. Ow. My sides. That was too funny, Pikachu. Really."
Pikachu stood up, laughing. "I thought so. What was that about folding under pressure? Did I not see you drop unconscious like a pile of bricks?"
"I didn't see you do anything to help!"
"Because you were stone-cold dead to the world on your face! I saved the day! Sort of!"
"Like hell you did."
"Actually." Ash said. "He did help. He distracted Kadabra from killing Charizard, Snorlax, and Bayleef. Saved their lives."
"Wow!" Squirtle turned to Pikachu. "You did?"
"Oh, it was no big deal. You just can't keep awesome bottled up for too long. Eventually it'll go stale."
Squirtle put a finger in Pikachu's face. "Don't push it. I don't have any problems giving credit where it's due, but act too cocky and praise won't be the only thing that'll get shoved in your ears." He turned to Ash. "I'm getting a one-way trip back to Vermillion in a minute. I convinced Nurse Jody or whatever her name is to let me say goodbye.
"You convinced them? How? They can't understand you."
"Yeah, but they sure as hell understand pointing and shouting."
"Well, you got me there. By the way, is there some kind of teleporter you can use without going inside a Pokeball?"
"What, the whole mind-control thing?" Squirtle asked. "Don't sweat it. It'll take more than a Pokeball to mess with my sense of reality. Anyway, I'll see you guys later. I had a great time...for most of the day. Ash, you can call me any time you need help with anything. And keep those shades safe, alright?"
"Sure thing."
Squirtle walked through the door, stopped, then stuck his head around the corner.
"Oh yeah. I forgot." Squirtle smiled. "Ash, he forgives you." He stepped through the door as it shut behind him.
"He is such a tool." Pikachu said, laughing.
"Yeah, but at least he can back it up. Didn't he just say he was resistant to the Pokeball's effect?"
"Squirtle? Hell no! When I told him about it, he started pretending that he knew about it all along. He was just as screwed in the head as everyone else."
"Well...at least he can back it up physically."
"Oh definitely. And he knows how to make an exit, too."
Ash laughed. Squirtle's last comment lifted his last, crushing feeling of guilt from his shoulders. He stood up and motioned for Pikachu to follow.
"C'mon. From the sound of things, most of the Pokemon are okay. Let's make sure before we go visit Professor Oak."
"Alright." Pikachu started to follow, but then stopped in his tracks. "Ash..."
"Yeah?" Ash turned to see Pikachu looking away in shame and holding his tiny arms open.
"Let's do this here since no one's around. Can...can I have a hug?"
"Wh-Really?"
"Don't do that. This is completely emasculating already."
"Sure." Ash picked up Pikachu and they hugged, sharing a moment.
"Thanks for being a cool guy, Ash.
"Thanks for being a good friend Pikachu."
They embraced in silence for a moment.
"Ash...I have to tell you something."
"What is it?"
Pikachu's cheeks sparked. A smirk sparked with them.
"I'm not that good a friend." he said as the air pressure dropped.
Ash suddenly grew wide-eyed.
"Oh no..."
"Oh yes."
Before Ash could toss Pikachu away from him, he was engulfed in a bright, tingling light that rooted him to the floor and made his knees go weak. His muscles convulsed and he fell to the floor in sharp pain. He fell to the floor. As soon as the pain had started, it was gone. Ash was left panting on the ground, smoking slightly.
"I told you you had it coming." Pikachu said, matter-of-factually. "Besides, the true measure of a friendship is based on how mercilessly you can insult and beat up your friend without them getting angry."
Pikachu walked toward the door. He stepped onto and over Ash, tossing his hat on his face as he pushed through the double-doors to the recovery room.
"What are you doing?" He asked the still-steaming Ash, poking his head through the door. "I just electrocuted you! That couldn't have been more then 900 volts!" Ash weakly turned his head to Pikachu, then, struggling, raised his burned middle finger.
"Baby." Pikachu said, walking through the doors.
Author's Note: Alright, that's it. Thanks a lot for reading this. I loved the feedback I got from you guys and would really appreciate it if you could leave a review or two. Even if you don't, I'm glad you took the time to read my story. Thanks again!