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"Thanks, Grant. As you can see, our annual Spring festival is in full swing out here in Pamaring city, and- Oh!"
A pikachu appears on the camera, leaping onto the news anchor's soldier with an ease that suggests long practice. It's covered in mud and grime, tail thrashing and electricity sparking angrily at its cheeks. For such a small and adorable pokemon, something in the way it glares at the camera sings with intelligence and determination.
A hat- too big and clearly made for humans- sits on its head.
"Hey," Felicity says with an awkward smile towards the cameraman, "well lookie here! It seems that this little pikachu wanted to catch its moment in the limelight!"
She adopts an overly cheerful tone usually directed at very small children, lifting her microphone. "Pikachu! What fun have you gotten up to today at Pamaring City?"
The look on the mouse's face is just a step below a Leer. The answer is clear: no fun at all.
The video zooms in on the pikachu's serious features as it begins to speak rapidly, indecipherable and clearly frustrated. The sparks build bigger on its cheeks, and it lifts the hat off its head and holds it out to the camera.
The feed focuses on the reporter's face, which is looking rather put out. The festival goers are starting to stop and stare as the pokemon builds up momentum in its speech.
"Ah, Pikachu, can you tell me where your trainer is? Bob…”
Pikachu gestures with the hat and gets even louder .
The news anchor, losing patience, starts to reach up to try and grab the creature off her shoulder.
"Can someone please get this pokémon off me so I can do my job?"
"Where is it's trainer?" asks a voice off camera.
"Should we call Officer Jenny?"
The pikachu scowls, ears flicking-
And then Felicity must touch a sore spot, or a bruise, or something, because there's a loud yelp and then the video feed is filled with blinding light.
It takes a few seconds for everyone to recover from the thunderbolt, and by that time the pikachu is gone.
Felicity smiles at the camera, much more scorched. "Well, uh, there you have it, Grant. Some excitement over here at Pamaring City today in addition to the Spring Festival…"
It probably would have been the end of it, all things considering.
Sure, there were a few people who voiced concerns over the pikachu’s state of health, who wondered where its trainer was. Some individuals poked fun at the silly expressions made by the newscaster.
But the whole thing is quickly forgotten, theories composed and made-up explanations shared. It could be a case of a bad trainer, which is terrible, but what can you do? Possibly it was just a practical joke without that much of a punchline. It could have also just as well been a wild pokemon with a funky personality, interacting with humans out of curiosity. It’s been known to happen.
Either way, that should have been the end of it.
But then the pikachu shows up again.
And again.
And again.
Always in a different town or city. Always alone. Always dirty and injured and angry, though sometimes a little more than less. It doesn’t look like it’s starving, but it doesn’t necessarily look like it’s well fed, either. It gets in front of the camera and shows off the hat, usually using the newscaster in question to get high enough.
If someone mentions Officer Jenny, or tries to catch it, there’s a flash of lightning and it’s gone.
It becomes a bit of a laugh among the locals. The field reporters share exasperated looks and wish each other safe journeys unburdened by their yellow speed demon, pretend to pack rubber gloves or threaten to sue for hazard pay. There’s an ongoing joke about throwing a thunderbolt around when being mildly inconvenienced.
“If anyone knows this pikachu,” a young man says, hair a charred mess and eyebrows singed, “we’d appreciate getting a chance to serve our news cold.”
It’s funny.
And then the pikachu shows up with a newspaper.
‘Pikapi. Pi. Ka. Pi.’
It’s a word they’ve all heard before in the pokemon’s tirades, but never quite so sad.
Little yellow paws point at the black and white picture about a League in the Sinnoh region a few years back. It’s a kid, mid battle against a latios, face set in steady determination, mouth open in exclamation.
On his head is a very familiar looking hat.
And on the latios, a tiny blob of blurred movement, is a very familiar pikachu.
It’s kind of an Oh shit moment.
This wasn’t a prank or some wild pokemon being a little strange. This was a call for help.
“Someone needs to call Officer Jenny-”
On instinct, people start to back up-
Too late. The thunderbolt rings true, and by the time everythings put together again the pikachu is long gone.
Abandoned on the grass, the newspaper is splayed open on its front page, grubby little pawprints pressed around the edges.
“Hey, Julia! How have you been?”
“Doing okay, doing okay, what did you want to talk about?”
“Oh man, okay- you remember that kid? From, uh, a few years back? The one who took out the fucking latios?”
“Yeaaaaah? Vaguely.”
“Well, apparently, he’s missing. And has been missing for weeks.”
“Oh shit-”
“Uhuh, and the thing is, his pikachu? The crazy powerful one? It's been looking for him this entire time. By itself.”
“Really? That poor pokemon…”
“I know right?”
It hits major media sources by the next day, one vanished Ash Ketchum and the lengths his pokemon has gone to find him, to get his disappearance noticed. The story is the exact kind of heartwarming and dramatic that people eat up, and soon it's trending, especially when all of Ash’s friends get involved.
His many, many friends.
Including his more famous friends.
Champions, Pokémon Professors. Models and actors and gym leaders: there's an outpouring of support. They all say Ash is a charming young man with so much passion and love for the world and its people and pokémon. They all say Ash is a brave kid. A good kid.
They all say that Ash and Pikachu couldn't and wouldn't be separated for anything.
The region’s grown rather fond of their errant pikachu, if only by association, but they no longer find its little visits all that funny.
Instead, they’re rather concerned.
But no matter what they do, no bribing or cajoling or gentle hands can get Pikachu to come with them, to follow them to a pokecenter or anywhere else. One time- and just the once- they try to trap the pokemon by surprise, a quick sneak attack and grab.
Pikachu blows up, destroys the trap, and doesn’t come back to that town. The other communities learn from the village’s mistake and don’t try to do the same thing.
“As you can see, Sarang, last night’s flooding- Ah, wait one moment. We’ve gotten a visit from our resident pikachu friend.”
Soft voices, gentle tones. Everyone holds their breath and tries to look natural about it.
All it gets are suspicious looks from the yellow mouse pokemon.
Until-
“Pikachu!”
An ear twitches, and then a nose, and then Pikachu turns and is sprinting away from them.
“Pika-Chu!”
The camera jostles, trying to focus on the movement-
It manages to capture the exact moment the little creature is swooped up into the arms of a young woman who looks, to put it lightly, rather exhausted. She runs a careful hand all over the pikachu’s frame and then cuddles it closer, murmuring something that the camera doesn’t quite pick up. Everyone else looks on in shock.
The girl glances at them. At the camera.
“Hi,” she says, and tries for a smile, “My name’s Misty.”
Give me some space while I look over Pikachu’s injuries, Misty says. A gym leader, Misty says. Nothing to worry about.
And, indeed, a couple of hours later Pikachu is wrapped around Misty’s neck like a rather dangerous scarf, glaring and sparking at anyone who gets too close. But when that space is given, the mouse seems a very different pokemon, clean and healed and a little less grumpy, a little less desperate.
(“You should see it when Pikachu’s with Ash,” Misty says with a sad smile. Misty says a lot of things.)
Misty is also not the only one who shows up.
One by one, in a trickle and then a flood, people begin to show up to their little known region, parking out in their little known cities and towns and then making their way to Pikachu. Whispers spread of the Champion Cynthia, of Professor Oak, of an entire Charizard loaded up with small pokemon from across the continents, all congregating here. By the end of the evening, half the region seems to be camped out in the biggest local pokecenter they have.
No one dares take any pictures or videos, not after the current Champion of Unova tears into them a new one after spotting someone lifting their cameras. She calls them busybodied kids while she does it, her hair bouncing with her lecture.
Still, for a few days, their little region has become the hubbub of the international news cycle. Folks come in and out, search parties are formed, and volunteers assigned. The pikachu exists somewhere in between all the chaos, dashing between different people and pokemon, chittering and ordering and curling up in various laps for brief catnaps. The hat stays firmly on its head.
A picture goes out sometime on the fourth day, that small yellow pikachu luminated by a full moon, looking up into a starry night. It’s beautiful and lonesome and a little sad, and becomes featured in several local fundraising organizations that had sprung up in order to help support their unexpected guests.
The reporter smiles brightly at the camera, white teeth perfectly in place for a perfect smile. Congregated around him is a swarm of people, meshing colours and mingled chatter. The only thing that elevates his voice above the rest is the handy little microphone pinned to his bright red lapel.
Besides him is a young woman. Hair orange and pulled in a scruffy ponytail, her own jacket pulled tight around her frame in the brisk morning wind. A familiar pikachu sits on her shoulder, scowling suspiciously at the camera.
“Here we are, Jolene, seven days after this sleepy little region became the center of an ongoing search for missing pokemon trainer and Alolan League Champion, Ash Ketchum. I’m standing with one Miss Misty Hanada, who’s one of the unofficial lead voices heading this investigation.” He leans in close, microphone raised. “Tell me, Misty, where is your congregation heading off to today?”
The pikachu shifts, sparking in warning, and the reporter hastily backs up to give it some space. The girl in question crinkles her eyebrows in quiet amusement, shifting her shoulders awkwardly to balance the small creature’s weight.
“Pikachu is still really insistent that we check out the caves system, so we’re going to continue focusing our search there. We’re hoping Ash’ll realize we’re looking for him and make himself easier to find.”
“Any comments on why the pikachu had such adverse reactions to any mentions of Officer Jenny?”
Said reaction hasn't dissapeared, and the pikachu puffs up the same as before, sparking cheeks and heightened glare, a stance shifting to shoot off a bolt-
But even as the camera shakily backs up in preparation for the blow, it’s proven unnecessary when Misty raises her pale hand and scritches soothingly behind one of the pokemon’s ears. “No, not really,” she says while she does, lips quirking in some sense of exasperated fondness. “I know Ash has some thugs that follow him around and like to disguise themselves a lot, but it could be almost anything. We probably shouldn’t push it too much right now anyways, just in case it upsets Pikachu even more.”
There’s a blare of a megaphone off camera, and raised voices calling people to attention. Misty shifts when she hears it, Pikachu with her, and she only pauses to give a quick flash of a smile to the camera. “Looks like we’re starting. It was nice talking with you!”
And then she disappears, rushing into the throngs of people. The reporter doesn’t watch her go. “There you have it, Greg. All these people and pokemon are here for one reason and one reason only: to bring a young man home….”
It’s almost anticlimactic, in the end.
There’s no fanfare, no parades. Just a brigade of people coming out of the woods, sweaty and laughing after a few days of walking. They had found Ash, but they had chosen to send him back via helicopter to the closest hospital rather than risk anything with the long trek back. Pikachu had gone with him. So had Misty.
The troupe of Officer Jenny’s assigned to the case all agree that the collapse hadn’t been natural, and promise to release a full statement to the public on the concurrent events in due time. In the immediate aftermath, though, locals clamor for news, and people abroad look for answers.
“Ash has always been a very extraordinary boy,” Professor Oak comments in one of his interviews, rather undisturbed by the fact that one of his charges had been found deep in a previously undisturbed patch of caverns. “It seems that the local pokemon took quite good care of him after the unfortunate cave-in that had left them all trapped.”
Others also deign to be interviewed. Most of them do not. They leave, in spits and spurts and starts. They clamber into cars with each other, or book tickets to the nearest plane, or fly off on their pokemon. There seems to be an odd sense of camaraderie between all of them, these rich and famous people from around the world. None of them seem to be all that surprised that things turned out okay.
A picture gets released, two days after the group’s return and subsequent leaving. It’s a picture of a black haired teen in a hospital gown, beaming at the camera so wide his eyes are almost squeezed shut. There’s a scattering of stitches at his temple, and a bruise along his jaw, but the Pikachu taking up the other half of the frame doesn’t seem to mind. There’s a happy spark to its eyes, a healthy sheen to its fur, and its cheek squishes from where it’s pressed against its trainer’s.
Thanks for all your help! the caption reads. Followed by a half dozen yellow hearts and, for some unfathomable reason, a whale emoji.
Needless to say, it’s an instant hit.