After a few moments, Ash pulled himself up and looked at Yellow. She was whimpering from the sudden pressure on her recovering limbs and emotional and mental state from a few hours back.
Breathing heavily, he held her up to a sitting position, and he took her in his arms to approach and see their attacker.
'See, I told you so.'
'Yeah. Yeah. Now, we have to worry about what we are going to do to them...'
Ash was looking between the attacker's lying body and Yellow, and when they had come up to them, she was...confused?
Blinking owlishly a few times at her reaction, Ash and Roshi were confused as to why, and Ash asked her slowly in a whisper.
"Yellow, is this the person who, uh, you know, attacked you previously?"
Yellow turned her head towards him and shook her head negatively.
Turning his head to see the attacker's form for the first time, he took into account their appearance.
The attacker was a boy of nearly his age. He wore a samurai armor, a kabuto helmet, a bug-catching net on his back, and his belt contained two Poké balls and the sheath of the sword he had just attacked them with, which lay to the side of his head, buried blade first into the ground, having produced a small slice on his right cheek. A little bit of blood was flowing from the cut, and he was also glaring at them.
Ash turned back a little to keep the boy's eyes from seeing what he was doing and fiddled with his Pokédex to turn on the record function.
After that, he supported Yellow with one arm and took out the sword from the ground and held it in his other arm to point it at him.
"Pikachu. Eevee. Move a little."
Pikachu and Eevee moved a little away from the attacker, but were close enough to stop him from doing anything that could be dangerous for them.
Nodding at them, he turned to look at the boy who had attacked them and asked in a cold voice, "Who are you?"
The boy just scowled at him. Ash narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the hilt.
"Why should I talk to a coward with no sense of honor?"
Raising his eyebrow at the sheer hypocrisy of the statement with his actions, Ash pointed the sword at the boy.
"Your. Name."
"tch. Samurai."
"Why did you attack us?"
"Hey! You should give your name too..."
"Pika..."
Pikachu was holding the Iron Tail to his throat, and sparks were flowing from his cheeks while Eevee was growling at him.
"I am the one asking the questions. Now, why did you attack us? And tell everything from the beginning."
"You can't just..."
He felt Pikachu exert a bit more force on his throat, and Eevee had taken his Poké balls and placed them near his interrogator's feet.
Having no choice now except to speak, Samurai starts speaking.
"I did not attack you. I was challenging you to a battle."
"Why did you swing a sword at me, then? I could have gotten hurt or worse."
"I have been searching for somebody for the last week. If you get hurt or die, that is none of my business. If you had gotten hurt, then you would be weak. You are a coward for attacking me instead, taking my sword, and asking me with it pointed at me."
Tensing at the first sentence, Ash asked with a bit of caution, "Who are you searching for? And why?"
"That's just going..."
"Pi"
Pikachu amped up the sparks a bit.
"...Nearly a week ago, I had battled three trainers from Pallet Town. All of them had defeated me. The last one with a Squirtle had said that if I wanted to win or have any chance at beating him, I had to beat the trainer from Pallet Town, who would come after him as he was the weakest of them all. I was promised to be paid if I won a match against him. I have waited and searched for that trainer for nearly a week now to no avail. The forest has seen a lot of weird trainers this week. A fast and furious screaming banshee on a bike had scared and rattled all the Pokémon. Two weirdos with a Meowth have been prowling the forest's main path to search for a boy with a Pikachu and are disturbing the Pokémon here. Wait, you have a Pikachu, so you are the one they are searching for?!"
Having an idea as to who the three were, Ash and Pikachu narrowed their eyes at the part of the furious banshee.
"Say, the banshee you told me about, what were they like?"
Blinking at being ignored and the weird question, Samurai responded, "Eh, the banshee was a girl with red hair and a red bike, and she was screaming that the bugs were disgusting. She sped off towards the path that led to Pewter City."
"About the trainer who would pay you, was he a guy around my age with a red car, many cheerleaders were in that car, and he had an ego that just radiated everywhere?"
"Uh, yeah. How would you know? Wait. Are you the last trainer from Pallet Town?!"
"I wish I could say that I did not know him. Haaa. You said that he would give you the money if you told him that you beat me. Did he tell you how you would contact him? Do you know..."
"I-I, no. I do not know of a way to contact him. I forgot to ask."
"So, while I was taking my time to train my Pokémon for nearly the last week, you have been searching for me with no luck, and if you beat me somehow, you will not receive the reward you were promised. In frustration of your inability to find me, you attacked me with a sword which would have killed me and made you a criminal, if my body had been found. That is not taking into consideration that my Pokémon would beat you up if you had succeeded. Is that correct?"
"Now that you put it that way, yeah, it is true! Wait. Did I just get...?!"
Pointing at Yellow, Ash asked, "Say, do you know...?"
Samurai just shook his head negatively. "No."
'So, he was not the attacker. Well, that's a relief and a cause of concern at the same time.'
Meanwhile, poor Yellow was just turning her head back and forth between Ash and Samurai who was now groaning.
--------------------------------------------------
Back at Pallet Town.
Professor Oak and a few of the Ace Trainers from the league were loading the last crate of Spearow they had caught.
"Well Professor, that's the last of them. Can't believe there were so many of them still left after so many years. What are you going to do about them? We cannot just release them into the wild, so the only option is to..."
Holding up a hand, Professor Oak said, "Everything will be fine. I will take care of it. How is your team doing?"
"They were surprised by the sheer viciousness of those, but they will be better."
"Good to know. You do remember..."
"Never to talk about it to anybody except the league president? Yes."
At that moment, there was a message received in the computer from Ash's Pokédex.
"Hmm?"
Remembering what happened last time, he opened the recording prepared for anything. Well, he was not prepared to hear what was in the recording.
He just facepalmed while groaning.
"Hey, Professor?"
"Yeah?"
"Did your grandson just accidentally scammed a person and had one of your sponsors nearly mugged?"
With a tired tone, he said, "Yes"
"Man, if people got to know..."
"10,000 if you keep your mouth shut."
"20,000"
"11,000"
"21,000"
"16,000"
"20,000"
"18,000"
"Deal."