The sound of the laboratory door hitting the stop was so sharp it seemed to slice the morning in two. It rang off the stucco and the fence rails and even the metal carts by the wall, a hard-edged thunk that made Bob's shoulders tense before his mind had time to catch up. Diana's gown-like silhouette eased half a step in front of him on instinct, not threatening, just there—as if the air itself had asked her to be a wall. Dust drifted in the doorway's light like shaken glitter, and in that bright rectangle stood a girl who looked as if she'd sprinted straight out of her bed into the day without asking permission from either.
Bare feet on the threshold. Pajama shorts clinging high on long legs. A loose sleep top that hung off one shoulder like it had lost a wrestling match with a blanket. Black hair in a rushed ponytail that had already started to betray its purpose and spill down her back. She wasn't posing—she didn't have to. The way she planted her feet said she landed everywhere the same: late, loud, and ready to go.
Bob's brain tried to slot the shape into the memory he knew, the one with a boy and the same volcano-dark hair and a grin that could power a town. The mental gears ground teeth. The pieces refused to click. His thoughts stuttered, hopped tracks, and skidded sideways into disbelief. He didn't have a name for her—no introduction, no title, nothing official—but he did have the sensation that a familiar theme had just been played in a new key.
{Ohhhhhh wow,} Aqua breathed, delighted, syrupy, the kind of glee that always arrived when Bob least wanted it. {Somebody turned the difficulty up and swapped the sprite pack while you were napping. Do not look at me like that—I didn't code this episode. Probably.}
He didn't answer her. It would only add noise to the noise. He swallowed once, dragged a breath in past the shocked copper taste of adrenaline, and kept his face flat, because if the day had taught him anything it was that Pallet Town noticed everything.
"Inside," Professor Oak said, not loud, not gentle, simply final. He didn't say the girl's name. He didn't need to. The weight in his voice picked up the four of them—Bob, Diana, Daisy, the pajama stranger—and moved their feet for them. The only person who didn't respond was Gary.
Gary made an art of not responding.
He adjusted his jacket with two fingers and smoothed the front like the moment had wrinkled it, then tipped his chin just enough to cast his eyes down a proud bridge of nose. Squirtle stood at his heel again, stubborn, bruised pride turning the set of its mouth hard. "Don't think this is over," Gary said, and somehow found a way to aim it at both the pajama girl and Bob without moving his head. "You—" a flick of his eyes at Bob "—got lucky behind a monster you can't match, and you—" a sharper flick at the girl "—are already late to your own story. Catch up if you can. I'll be ahead. Like always."
The pajama girl's answer was a grin that flashed too bright to be anything but honest. "I'll pass you," she said, and made it sound like fact.
Gary laughed through his nose, tossed a two-fingered salute without looking, and strode away. Squirtle gave Bob and Diana one last square little nod, as if promising that next time it wouldn't bounce, it would break through, and scuffed after its trainer down the path.
"Inside," Oak said again, and this time even the echo obeyed.
The lab swallowed them in a cool breath: metal tang, paper dry, the steady, patient hum of machines that had been thinking longer than most people. Daisy peeled off to the clerk's desk by reflex and slipped a thin packet—the one that had Bob's already finished registration—into a file sleeve with that effortless competence that made complex things look like chores. The pajama girl drifted toward a bank of consoles, hands behind her head, rocking on her heels like her body could not tolerate stillness for more than a handful of seconds. She wasn't bored. She just lived on forward motion.
Oak's steps tapped a measured line across the tile. He stopped at the central table where instruments tended to gather like cats in warm sun: a flat, white cloth, a neat charger cradle, a red device with an understated badge—Pokédex—and, set like little moons in a row, three gleaming Poké Balls.
Bob had seen this scene before, in a life that felt like it belonged to someone he'd read about. That version had camera angles and swelling music and the off-screen certainty that the day would unfold on rails. This had air conditioning and dust motes and the quiet, real weight of choices that wouldn't roll credits when they hurt.
Diana's fingers brushed the sleeve of his shirt. Steady, her presence said, though the word itself never formed. He steadied.
"Miss Ketchum," Oak said, and there it was—the surname that hung so naturally in the room that Bob almost didn't notice the way it landed. He didn't have a first name yet. He didn't have the neat label his memory wanted to paste onto her forehead. He had a family name and a silhouette and a temperament that charged everything like a thundercloud.
The pajama girl rocked forward on her toes. "Yeah?" she said, all bright readiness and unapologetic promise.
"You will conduct yourself properly in this laboratory," Oak said. Not unkind. Not flexible. "You will change into traveling clothes before we discuss starters. Daisy?"
Daisy was already moving. "I'll get something from storage," she said, then paused mid-step and really looked at the pajama girl for the first time since they came in. The corner of her mouth moved—somewhere between amusement and horror at just how much pajama a person could be in a research facility. "Right. Pants. Socks. Shoes."
The girl laughed, sheepish only in the way a thunderstorm might be if it knocked politely before rattling your windows. "Got it. I'll be fast."
She disappeared down the side hall with Daisy in her wake, bare feet whispering over tile. The lab breathed around their absence in a way Bob hadn't realized it was holding back. Oak's shoulders lowered a fraction. The machines kept humming. Somewhere a thermal printer muttered briefly to itself, then gave up.
"Your registration is complete," Oak said without turning, as if Bob had asked. "Your card will be ready shortly. The League acknowledges you under the name you provided."
"Bob," Bob said, because saying B.O.B. always sounded like he was explaining a joke. "Yeah."
Oak's gaze slid toward Diana like a hand smoothing a page. "She will earn you enemies without a word," he said, simply, and there was no warning in it—only weather. "And there will be trainers who look at you and see a shortcut they want to take with their hands. Consider very carefully where you battle, and with whom."
Bob didn't need Aqua to translate that one. Even so, she couldn't help herself. {Subtext: please don't turn my lab's front yard into a highlight reel, champ. Also: watch your pockets.}
He didn't bother to glare at the unseen ceiling. "Understood," he said aloud, because he did.
They waited, and the waiting didn't feel like filler. It felt like the bit between a breath where your ribs haven't decided whether they're empty or full. Diana's presence softened into something like contentment; if she feared anything in this room, Bob couldn't sense it. He almost asked if she wanted the ball for quiet—she could rest there now, safe, no telepathy needed—but the thought curled away the moment it formed. She preferred the world at eye level, for now. So did he.
Footsteps returned: two sets, Daisy's quick and crisp, the other lighter but longer, confident. The girl came back dressed for the road—not in a borrowed lab jumpsuit, thank gods, but in clothes that looked like they'd been waiting for her: a fitted top that bared a line of midriff without apology, short shorts that rode high and flexed with her stride, high socks kissing just beneath the knees, and shoes laced like she'd done it at speed her entire life. The ponytail had been tamed into competence. The eyes hadn't changed at all.
"Better," Oak said, and not a hint of surprise that she could transform chaos into presentable in three minutes flat.
She planted herself at the table's edge and leaned in, hands to the cloth, pupils widening like the three Poké Balls were sunrise. "So," she said, "how do we do this?"
"With respect," Oak answered, and warmed the word so it wasn't a rebuke. He palmed the leftmost ball, then the middle, then the right, and each time the embedded lamp winked acknowledgement. "Normally, these are the choices—Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle. Each with strengths. Each with burdens. Each suited to different tempers. But it has been a busy morning." He glanced toward the window, where the field lay bright and trampled. "Two were claimed at dawn. One has just left with my grandson."
The girl's grin faltered, not in disappointment so much as in reconsideration, like a runner finding the lane they wanted closed and scanning for a new angle. "So… I blew it."
"You arrived late," Oak said, which was almost kind of the same thing without the sting. "But late does not mean lost."
Daisy set the red device on the cloth at the girl's elbow. "Pokédex," she said, and there was pride in it—hers, Oak's, the lab's, all the old pride of people who had built a machine that could know and still be surprised. "It will update as you see the world. It won't scold you for being late."
The girl laughed, took the device with both hands, and held it like it might choose her back. "Nice to meet you too," she told it, because of course she would.
"What is that?" she added a beat later, snapping her gaze up and over the device to Diana. There was no shyness in it, only wonder so clean it made Bob feel protective of the moment. "I mean, I know that's a Pokémon, obviously, but—she's huge. And shiny. And—wow. I've never—what is she?"
Daisy's eyes glittered. She loved this part, the gift of names. "Gardevoir," she said, tasting each syllable like sugar. "Not native to this region. A rare line even where they're found. She isn't in the current Pokédex index. You won't find an entry for her by accident."
Oak's gaze sharpened further, a scalpel resting on velvet. "And not merely a Gardevoir. She is a Shiny. And she is an Alpha." No drama in it. Just light on metal. "Larger. More resilient. Stronger in ways that matter when the world runs out of flat ground."
The girl circled the table to stand closer, not too close, respectful in the way only people who forget to be polite can be and then remember just in time. Her eyes traveled the length of Diana, took in the height that stole doorways, the pale gown that moved like tempered silk, the steady, unreadable stare. "She's incredible," she breathed, then flashed a grin at Bob that felt like an invitation to a race. "When I get my partner, I want to battle you. Not to win. To see where I'm starting."
Bob's mouth tugged at a smile he didn't mean to show. "We'll make it gentle," he said. "She breaks more than she means to."
Diana's aura lifted with polite amusement. The girl laughed, like that was the best warning she'd ever heard.
Oak cleared his throat—not to end the moment, just to fit it into the shape of the day. He slid the three empty balls aside. Beneath the cloth, he palmed a fourth that did not match the others. This one was older in design: a brassy ridge, a circular port, the faintest resistance as if the mechanism could remember being stubborn. He set it down between his hands with ceremony.
"There is," he said, "another companion here. Not a starter in the traditional sense. Not for everyone. He is… particular." The corner of his mouth moved. "But so are you."
The girl leaned in until her reflection curved across the ball's lacquered top. "Particular I can handle," she said, bright with the kind of confidence that breaks and remakes the world until it fits. "I've been ready since I was five."
"Since you were supposed to be asleep," Daisy muttered fondly.
Oak didn't smile, but the air around him did. He turned his head slightly then, toward Bob, and it was the first time since the door slammed that he used the shape of introductions. "Before we proceed, Miss Ketchum, meet our other guest." He lifted his chin an inch in Bob's direction. "A new trainer. Registered this morning. He goes by—"
"Bob," Bob said, because a name felt like a hand offered across a gap, and he was done staring at that gap like it might eat him. "Just Bob."
The girl's grin arrowed at him. "Then I'll see you on the road, Just Bob," she said, and made it a promise and not a threat.
She still hadn't given him her first name. Oak still hadn't spoken it. Bob's brain still had a boy-shaped memory trying to ghost over her outline and failing. That was fine. Names arrive exactly when they mean to, and not before.
{Wow,} Aqua sighed theatrically, pretending to dab at her eyes. {Look at you two. Rivals by vibe alone. I'm gonna need popcorn. And a bigger HUD.}
"Not now," Bob breathed, and somewhere he was sure he heard her grin.
Oak tapped the oddball ball once with two fingers. The inner coil answered with a soft electric click and the lights overhead seemed to lean in. "Very well," he said, and the machine hum in the room felt like a chorus holding its breath. "Miss Ketchum, let us see if this partner will accept you."
The day, which had already rewritten itself twice, poised like a coin mid-flip.
And for the first time since the door had slammed, Bob realized he was grinning too.
Oak's fingers lingered on the oddball Poké Ball, the one with the brass ridge and a faint static hum that didn't belong to the neat trio already set aside. The air in the lab seemed to notice; even the machines quieted, as though some unspoken current had just settled between them.
"Miss Ketchum," Oak said at last, voice steady, measured. "The standard starters are gone. They were claimed by those who rose on time." His gaze flicked, just for an instant, toward the window where the path dust still hung in the air from Gary's exit. Then he returned to the girl, who bounced once on her toes, not discouraged, not chastened—just waiting.
"But," Oak continued, sliding the peculiar ball forward until it rested in the center of the white cloth, "there remains… another option."
The girl's eyes widened, caught between wonder and impatience. "Another? Then I didn't blow it after all!"
Oak's mouth tightened a fraction, as though bracing for the storm he knew was coming. "Not quite. This Pokémon is strong, but temperamental. It has rejected the ball more times than I care to admit. It does not obey easily. But if you wish to begin your journey today… this is what remains."
{Ohhh, special snowflake starter alert,} Aqua crooned in Bob's head, syrup-thick with delight. {This is where the anime director zooms in, rolls the drums, and—zap—cue the comedy electrocution.}
Bob's stomach tightened. No way. This can't be—
Oak pressed the button. The Poké Ball split open with a sharp hiss, and light spilled onto the cloth in a sudden, electric crackle. The glow struck the table like lightning condensed into a sphere, and when it cleared, the air smelled faintly of ozone.
A small yellow shape crouched there, tail tipped like a jagged bolt, cheeks sparking faint static with every breath. Round black eyes blinked once, twice, and then narrowed in suspicion at the room that had dared drag it into daylight again.
"Pika…" it muttered, ears flicking. The sound was low, unimpressed.
The girl's grin returned full force. She knelt forward instantly, hands on her knees, eyes bright. "Whoa! He's adorable! Look at those cheeks—he's got lightning on his face!"
The Pokémon's tail twitched. Static leapt. The grin didn't falter.
Daisy set a hand over her mouth, as though she'd just remembered what came next and couldn't decide whether to warn her or enjoy the inevitability.
Oak folded his arms. "This is Pikachu. He is powerful, but… difficult."
"Difficult?" the girl repeated, already inching closer. "Nah. He's perfect."
The spark built, visible now as a faint glow under the little rodent's skin. Bob felt the hairs on his arm prickle. Diana's hand touched his sleeve, calm but poised, her presence a reminder that she could intercept if this went sideways.
The girl stretched out a hand. "Hey there, partner. Want to come with me?"
Pikachu's ears flattened. The spark jumped. And then—
BZZZT-THOOM!
Lightning cracked across the lab, rattling the consoles, scorching a streak across the floor. The pajama girl yelped, hair flying, body convulsing as static jolted through her bones. She landed on her backside, smoke rising faintly from her sleep shirt, and then burst into laughter, wild and genuine. "He's perfect," she gasped again, no hesitation, no second thoughts. "Absolutely perfect!"
Bob blinked. His brain still wanted to see Ash, the boy who should've stood there. Instead, the girl beamed like the shock had been the punchline of a joke she'd been waiting years to hear.
{And she likes it!} Aqua squealed. {Oh, Bob, you're doomed. She's got masochist-coded lightning rat energy now. How are you gonna compete with that?}
Bob didn't answer. He couldn't. Because for the first time since Diana stepped in front of him, since Aqua started her endless commentary, since this whole day began, he realized he was smiling too.
Oak exhaled through his nose, long-suffering but not surprised. "Then Pikachu it is."
The smell of ozone still hung sharp in the lab air when Daisy slid the red device across the table. It caught the light like a ruby and hummed faintly as if eager to be touched.
"Your Pokédex," she said, tone brisk but eyes sparkling with a quiet fondness. "Professor Oak developed it himself. It records data, logs encounters, and links you officially to the League's system."
The pajama girl scooped it up with both hands, grin so wide it nearly split her face. She tapped the badge on its casing like it was a medal pinned to her chest. "I'll fill this thing until it explodes," she declared, like a vow made to the whole world.
Bob could practically hear Aqua fanning herself in the back of his skull. {Oh, dramatic declarations, check. Pokédex crush, check. She's hitting every rival trope in the handbook, Bob. Careful, or you'll find yourself competing for screen time.}
Oak ignored the commentary no one else could hear and produced a slim tray of five Poké Balls. "Standard issue," he said, pushing them toward her. "To catch Pokémon, should they consent. To carry them, should they allow it."
The girl seized the tray with a flourish. "Five's all I need. Six including him," she added, pointing proudly at Pikachu.
Pikachu's response was to turn his back, tail snapping like a whip. His cheek sacs sparked a tiny, rude pop.
Daisy stifled a laugh behind her clipboard. Oak only sighed. "Yes… about that." He tapped the Poké Ball that technically belonged to Pikachu, the same one the little mouse had rejected so many times. "You may find he does not enjoy confinement."
"Doesn't matter." She bent low, trying to catch Pikachu's eye. He didn't budge. "We'll make it work. Even if he never goes in, he's still mine. Right, buddy?"
The mouse turned his head just enough to meet her gaze—then shocked her hand for emphasis.
She yelped, hair frizzing a little, then laughed again through the sting. "See? Already bonding!"
Bob pinched the bridge of his nose. Diana tilted her head, expression unreadable.
{Oh my Me,} Aqua howled, {she's into it! She thinks electrocution is love taps. Bob, I cannot compete with this brand of crazy. She's gonna drag that rodent across the continent on sheer stubbornness alone.}
Oak cleared his throat, drawing the moment back under his authority. "Regardless, Pikachu will be your partner. You will learn patience, or you will fail. The League is unforgiving on this point."
The girl straightened, saluted with the Pokédex in one hand and the still-smoking other. "We'll learn together. Promise."
Oak nodded, as though he'd heard the same promise countless times before in countless voices. Only this time, his eyes softened, just slightly.
Bob leaned back against the counter, watching it all unfold. He knew this scene. He'd watched this scene, once, in another life. But the roles weren't filled the way they were supposed to be. The names didn't match. The faces were wrong. And yet, the script was still playing out, beat for beat.
Diana brushed against his mind without words. Not threat, not worry. Just a quiet question: Are you steady?
He nodded once. "Yeah," he whispered. "Steady enough."
Oak's pronouncement hung in the humming air like a judge's gavel, and for a heartbeat no one moved—then the moment rushed forward all at once: Daisy sliding over a slim tray of standard balls along with a tissue-thin envelope that unfolded into a hand-inked Town Map; Oak's palm settling a second folded map on the same cloth and, with a look to Bob that contained both trust and warning, adding a third.
"One for each of you, and an extra for my grandson should you cross paths," he said, which was Oak-speak for I know how this story tends to go, and it's better if everyone can find their way home. The pajama girl—Miss Ketchum in the lab, a thunderbolt in sneakers to the world—snatched her map and Pokédex and the argumentative mouse in equal measure, tried to press Pikachu's ball to his nose like a ceremonious knighting, got zapped hard enough to frizz the tips of her long bangs, laughed like lightning was a handshake, and bowed at the waist to Oak as if she'd just been handed the keys to an engine that ran on stubbornness. Bob accepted his own packet more quietly, Diana's presence a cool ribbon along his side, and Aqua narrated in the back of his mind like a host who'd stolen the studio mic: {Tutorial complete! New questlines unlocked! Side characters acquired! Please proceed to Route 1 for your mandatory character-building trauma!}
They stepped out into the flat white noon. Pallet Town, from the lab steps, looked like a painting the wind refused to smudge—fields combed into neat ribs, a creek winking through them, red roofs like thumbprints. For a short stretch they walked together—Miss Ketchum, Pikachu murderously pacing at her heel; Bob with the maps tucked under his arm and Diana gliding a half-pace ahead, drawing stares she ignored the way mountains ignore weather. They traded the small, bright talk of brand-new travelers: where they'd sleep the first night ("Outside," she said, as if indoors were a rumor.), which badge they wanted most ("All of them," she said, without irony.), whether Pikachu would ever tolerate the ball ("He'll come around," she said, and got a warning crackle across her knuckles for the optimism). At the fork where the road dropped into orchard shade, their strides broke apart the way beaded water divides on glass. She lifted her Pokédex in a wave that was more promise than farewell and loped off uphill, already talking to Pikachu as if he could be argued into affection. Bob watched her go long enough to be sure the shape of her didn't slip into the old outline in his head, then exhaled and chose the path that stitched the treeline.
Shade swallowed sound there; the town's voices dwindled to a memory behind leaves. Diana's gown whispered over ferns. Every now and then she paused, fingers brushing a shrub, and a berry would float into Bob's waiting palm with the effortless grace of a thought—two plump oran, three tart pecha, one knobbly, bitter rawst he pocketed anyway because luck was a weather that changed without asking. {Look at you, Mister Forager,} Aqua purred. {All that perk value paying dividends while your rival is busy getting a perm from a nine-volt gremlin.} Bob grunted something noncommittal—he could feel the day trying to decide what kind it wanted to become—and kept his eyes on the understory, because motion there had a habit of turning into teeth if you didn't give it the dignity of attention.
He felt the first prickle before he saw the flash: a charge in the air that wasn't heat, hairs lifting along his forearms the way they did when Diana flexed Psychic just enough to move a spoon. A whip of yellow light knifed through the ferns and landed on the fallen trunk ahead with a gymnast's snap—small, coiled, electric, tail-carve forming a heart that might have been cute if it weren't the flag of a duelist. She sat there royal as a champion on the top rope, huge eyes haloed by leaf-speckled sun, cheeks blooming the smallest ember of static with each breath. Then—because everything about her was theater—she raised one tiny forepaw and crooked it twice in a come-on, a luchadora's dare scaled to ten inches tall.
"Pikachu," Bob said, both to acknowledge and to buy his brain a second. Female—tail heart, sure. Shiny, too; her yellow had that burnished, honeyed tone that made the light love her. Rare didn't begin to cover it. Aqua inhaled like a game show host sighting a suitcase of cash. {CONGRATULATIONS! You have encountered a Limited Edition Neon Violence Gremlin™ before Route 1. Would you like to: A) scream, B) throw money, or C) thank your system goddess for ridiculous RNG? Hint: it's C.}
Diana didn't move, but Bob felt the pressure of her attention focus until it was a beam. The little Pikachu's gaze flicked to the towering Gardevoir, then back to Bob, then back to Diana, and the corners of her mouth—not that rodents had corners, but somehow she made it work—lifted with ferocious delight. She hopped down, paced a slow circle, and began to…pose. That was the only word for it. One paw forward, shoulder rolled; a low bounce to test spring; a sideways shuffle that looked absurdly like a ring-intro strut. Electricity teased the air like someone rubbing silk on glass.
"I'm getting performer vibes," Bob murmured. Diana's aura read as amused assent. "We do this clean," he added under his breath. "No overkill."
The Pikachu feinted left and exploded right, a yellow comet slashing for Bob's shins in a quick Quick Attack that was half strike, half prank. She would have clipped him if the air hadn't thickened into invisible jelly—Diana's Psychic firming between them like a safety net lowered without ceremony. The little wrestler's eyes went very round as her own momentum met a wall she could not see and she tumbled, somersaulted, stuck on nothing. She squeaked pure outrage, regrouped on the log, and launched again, this time twisting midair into a body splash that belonged in a televised tournament. It was ridiculous. It was magnificent.
"Gentle," Bob reminded, and Diana obliged, letting the Pikachu carom off a cushioned curve of force that turned her stunt into a harmless bounce. Pikachu rolled, popped up, shook herself hard enough to fling static, then pointed at Diana with both paws in the universal animal language of you and me. She shouted something that—if you ignored the fact it was only her name—sounded exactly like a challenge.
"She wants you," Bob said. Not the first time in his life a woman had delivered that particular problem, and maybe the least complicated. "One pass. Teach, don't break."
Diana stepped forward, not fast, not looming, simply filling the space the forest had to offer until there was no room left for pretense. The Pikachu blazed in with a spark-trailing Thunder Shock meant less to damage than to dazzle, feinted low, ricocheted high, tried to get behind. Diana didn't swat or snag. She listened—to pawbeats, to charge, to the slight tightness of air where a path was about to be—and then laid tiny, precise edits into the world: a nudge to turn a pounce wide; a breath of lift to make a leap land an inch short; a whisper of pressure that caught a wrist and spun a throw into a pirouette. It wasn't a contest so much as a lesson in geometry. The little luchadora learned fast—feints doubled, charge rhythm staggered, footwork changed from thump-thump-spring to shuffle-spring-snap—and when she finally committed to the big one, a full-body, maskless Volt Tackle substitute where she flung herself like a star with a tail, Diana simply…wasn't there. A half-step to the side. A hand on the air. The electricity spilled into a blue-white ring that crawled up the trunks and left the clearing stinking of bright metal.
Pikachu hit moss, bounced, rolled to her feet in one fluid, furious motion, and froze—not because she was afraid, but because she had seen enough. She planted both paws wide, puffed out her tiny chest, and bowed. A wrestler's bow. Respect, challenge, promise. Then she pointed again at Diana, thumped her own heart-marked tail twice like a stamp, and declared—clear as language if you listened for the grammar under names—"Rival."
Bob couldn't stop the laugh that snuck out of him, the kind that begins as air and ends as relief. "You heard the lady," he told Diana. "She's formally issued paperwork."
Diana's composure didn't crack, but the air brightened around her like sunlight off glass. Accepted, that brightness said. With kindness. With effort.
"Alright," Bob continued, dipping a hand to his belt for a ball, "terms then. You come with me, we do this together. You can challenge her as often as you like, but you listen when I say enough."
The Pikachu looked at the ball the way a duelist looks at a contract—suspicious, then hungry. She paced a tiny circle, got her breath back, flicked both ears toward Diana one more time like sealing a pact, then jabbed her chin at the capsule as if to say try me.
"Hold," Bob warned softly, and Diana obliged, setting the gentlest web of inertia in the space as he tossed. The ball struck true, light leapt, the luchadora dissolved into red and went in—and for three volleys of the inner coil she fought like a headline: shake, kick, almost pop, shake, nearly break the gyros, shake and then—ding.
The forest exhaled. Bob realized he'd been holding his breath so hard his ribs hurt.
{WELL, WELL, WELL,} Aqua sang, doing cartwheels in a HUD he couldn't see. {QUEST COMPLETE! "Catch a lightning goblin with main-character swagger." Reward: bragging rights, new teammate, and my eternal jealousy. Also—ding ding—look at your bar, smarty.}
A blue pane slid across his mind's eye with cheerful tyranny.
{[REGISTERED CAPTURE!] New Partner: Pikachu ♀ (Shiny) — "Libre" Temperament: Showboat/Fighter Quirk: Refuses boring battles. Bond Seed: Rivalry pledged to party member: Gardevoir (Diana). EXP awarded: Trainer Catch Bonus + Discovery Bonus (variant). [EXP: ▰▰▰▰▱ (close to next level)] Passive Unlock: "Tag Entrance"—first switch-in after Diana grants +10% Speed for one turn.}
"Libre?" Bob echoed, half at Aqua, half at the capsule warm in his palm.
{She named herself, actually,} Aqua said, unhelpfully smug. {Or I did. Same diff. Look, she fights like a ring legend and just challenged your seven-foot psychic wife to a life-long friendly feud. The branding writes itself. You're welcome.}
Bob knelt, pressed the ball lightly to the moss, and clicked it open—not to force, but to ask. Light unspooled and Libre stood there again, head high, cheeks still whispering static. She looked up—way up—at Diana, then at Bob, then planted her paws and presented her tail for inspection like a knight offering a sword. "Pika," she said, fierce and oddly ceremonial.
"Welcome aboard," Bob answered. "House rule one: don't die trying to look cool."
Libre winked—actually winked—and shadowboxed the air twice like she'd just been introduced to the crowd. Diana inclined her head in a bow that would have made a queen proud.
The weather turned on a hinge.
It wasn't thunder first—just that particular hush a landscape takes when a lot of small lives decide to be quiet at once. Then came the rough, tearing chorus: harsh kreee! calls layered until they sounded like dry saws biting the same plank. The late-day light dimmed not because the sun had gone but because moving bodies had shouldered between it and the ground. Out past the next rise a swarm was boiling—brown wings, cruel beaks, the unmistakable gang-rush of Spearows who had found something to hate.
A line of blood-scents rode the draft to them—copper, raw, panicked. Bob was on his feet before he'd made the decision; his body was already a road. "With me," he said, and the two words braided command and plea. Libre hopped to his shoulder like a feathered cape; Diana matched his stride with her gown whispering gravel. Aqua, for once, didn't joke. {Go,} she said, the UI in his head shedding every glitter. {I'll ping the path. Left at the split. Over the stile. Don't trip.}
They broke the tree line at a run and the landscape opened like a wound. The old fence that marked the boundary of some forgotten paddock lay trampled flat in a ragged V. Feathers—pale down and darker flight—snowed the dirt. In the clearing's churned center, a girl crouched over a yellow body, arms spread, back striped with fresh talon marks that had already started to slick, hair ripped loose from its tie and stuck in the sweat and blood on her cheek. Pikachu—her Pikachu—pressed against her belly, lips peeled back from small, desperate teeth, cheeks pulsing with charge it didn't yet have the courage or control to release. The Spearow ringed them in a jagged halo, hopping closer in cruel little jerks, testing whether the shield would break if they tested it together.
Miss Ketchum's head snapped up at the sound of Bob's footfall. The look in her eyes wasn't the morning's grin or even Oak's laboratory obedience; it was something raw and incandescent, the exact fulcrum where fear turns into refusal. "He kept running," she said, breathless, like she had to explain it to herself as much as to him. "They kept coming. I—" The words died on a cough. She was shaking, but she hadn't put her body anywhere else than between.
The lead Spearow darted. It was a mean, fast thing with a scar ridge over one eye, beak nicked like a cheap knife. Libre didn't wait for orders; she leapt from Bob's shoulder with a wrestler's cry and met it mid-air, tiny forepaws hooking, twisting, flipping the bird over her hip in a ludicrous, perfect arm-drag. It hit dirt beak-first in a spray and scrambled back up shrieking humiliation. The flock convulsed, anger tripping them into boldness. Ten wings came at once.
"Wall!" Bob barked, and the world obliged: Diana's Psychic stepped out of invisibility and became a dome so clean the incoming birds simply flattened against it, beaks squealing on nothing, claws scraping phantom glass. The sound was hideous; the safety it drew around the girl in the center was absolute.
Miss Ketchum sagged a fraction, relief fighting exhaustion. She looked up at Diana—way up—and something like awe softened the line of her jaw. "You came," she whispered, not to Oak or Daisy or the town, but to the shape of help itself.
"Don't pass out," Bob said, and tried a smile that felt steadier than he felt. "You'll miss your big scene."
Her answering breathless laugh was half sob. "You knew?"
"Call it a rerun," he said, then pointed—a conductor queuing an orchestra that hadn't realized it was ready. "You've got it in you. Tell him."
She drew in air like she was hauling up the sea. "Pikachu," she said, and when she said it she meant partner and please and now. The little mouse looked up at her, at the ring of enemies that pressed the dome, at Bob, at the impossible pillar of Gardevoir holding back the world—and something in its chest clicked into place. The glow in the cheek sacs steadied. The fear in its feet drained away and left only a line of intent.
"Now," Bob said softly, and let the dome thin—not dropped, not abandoned, just opened—two hand-widths at the top where sky waited hungry.
"Thunder!" Miss Ketchum shouted, and her voice cracked on the second syllable with everything she had been holding together.
The bolt didn't fall. It erupted—from Pikachu up through the opening like a pillar meant to pin the sky to the ground. For a white second the world was a wire. The flock became silhouettes with bones, then ash-edged bodies flung by the shock. The lead Spearow pinwheeled away, smoking at the wing tips. The rest broke like badly tied rope and fled screaming toward the trees, sanity returning at last to their small, cruel minds.
Silence didn't fall so much as arrive. It arrived in the smell of rain that hadn't happened, in the slow patter of burned feathers settling, in the sound Miss Ketchum made when relief was heavier than pain and had to leave the body somehow. She swayed. Bob was already moving, one knee to the dirt, a hand out but not quite touching her because you don't grab a person who has just remembered how to be alive. Libre landed at his boot and struck a victory pose so over-the-top it would have been obscene if it weren't so fiercely earned. Diana lowered her hands and the dome melted back into air; the clearing breathed again.
Aqua's voice returned, gentler than he'd expected and quieter than she knew how to be. {Nice timing, champ. And look—system agrees.}
A panel slid with a soft chime.
{[QUEST COMPLETE!] "First Storm" Objectives: Witness a partner's resolve. Prevent a rout. Survive. Rewards: Pocket-Space Capsule (Field Type) — inventory placement pending. Perk Ping: Berry Forager synergy detected—soil within capsule supports berry cultivation; Poke-rest nooks unlocked. EXP: Significant (shared event, narrative anchor). [EXP: ▰▰▰▰▰▰▱ (two breaths from next level)]}
Miss Ketchum blinked up at him, then at Libre—who had already pointed both paws at Diana in a we're not done gesture—then at Pikachu, who wobbled, glared at the sky as if daring it to try again, and promptly collapsed in her lap like a spent fuse. She gathered him, blood smearing new red on yellow fur, and winced only when her arms remembered they were skin.
"Hey," Bob said, softer. "Can you stand?"
She nodded, a liar's nod that still counted, and tried. The world tilted. Diana was there before gravity could finish its trick; seven feet of polished grace became a gentle brace under a human shoulder as if that were the job she had been born for. Miss Ketchum startled at the cool, impossible strength and then relaxed against it in the same heartbeat—a thing people do when they discover the universe is allowed to be kind.
Libre hopped back to Diana's side and squared up, tail a heart drawn in bold ink. "Pika!" she declared, fierce and happy, and thumped the heart twice—rival, rival—at the towering psychic who had just held a skyful of knives aside. Diana inclined again, grave as ceremony. The pact felt real enough to sign.
"We need to clean those," Bob said, nodding to the talon tracks that laddered the girl's calves and arms. "There's a creek down the cut. Two minutes." He glanced at Libre and then at Pikachu, who snored a tiny electrical snore. "And then we talk about carrying him without you getting fried."
"Won't fry me," she said, with the kind of certainty that had just been advertized to the heavens. "Not anymore."
Bob believed her more than he meant to.
They moved—slowly at first, then with the rhythm that arrives when a group discovers it can be a group. Libre scouted three paces ahead, every shadow an imaginary opponent she suplexed in pantomime. Diana walked at exactly the angle that allowed Miss Ketchum to lean without feeling carried. Bob broke branches when the trail forgot people were fragile. The creek approved; it sang that clear little song creeks sing when they get to be in sunlight. Water washed sweat salt and iron away. Pikachu twitched once in the girl's arms, cracked one eye to verify the world still existed, and went back to sleep.
Only when the sting dulled and the shaking receded did Aqua dare to be herself again. {Okay, okay—now I'm allowed to say it: you two just speed-ran the pilot episode and patched in a co-op mode with bonus DLC boss. Ten out of ten, no notes. Also—open your inventory. Your pocket-space capsule looks like a certain nether portal but, like, friendlier. Perfect for berries. And naps. And maybe hiding from angry birds.}
Bob didn't open it yet. He let the quiet rest on them like a blanket the day had finally decided to share. Libre practiced lock-ups with her shadow in the shallows. Diana watched her like a mathematician admires a new proof. Miss Ketchum stroked the fur between Pikachu's ears with the same stubborn tenderness she'd shown the ball that morning.
"Hey," she said after a while, not looking up. "Just Bob, right?"
He almost smiled. "That's me."
"Thanks," she said. "For showing up."
"Any time," he answered—and knew, with a certainty that didn't feel borrowed from a show anymore, that he meant it.
Libre thumped her heart-tail twice more at Diana. Rival. Pikachu snored. The creek kept on being a creek. And somewhere above the treetops the sky pretended it hadn't just been used as a wire.
Diana lifted her hand, not toward the canopy but toward the girl who leaned against her. A faint shimmer pulsed, spreading like a ripple through air rather than water. It settled into Miss Ketchum's body, then into the limp Pikachu cradled against her stomach. Cuts closed like ink erased from paper; bruises blurred, softened, vanished. But healing was not the same as energy, and the relief of pain hit them both harder than the pain itself had. The girl's breath sighed once, steady and deep, her head tipping sideways into Diana's shoulder. Pikachu twitched once, ears crackling with a last spark, then surrendered to a sleep too heavy for dreams.
"They're out," Bob murmured.
{Correction,} Aqua chimed with mock gravitas. {They're patched, rebooted, and running on sleep mode. Give it three hours and they'll ping back online.}
"Three hours we don't move," Bob decided. His voice was steady, but he could feel the weight of responsibility hook into him deeper than he'd expected. "Camp here."
Diana inclined her head in silent agreement. Libre threw both forepaws up like a wrestler announcing a victory nobody had asked her to declare. Then she hopped into the shallows to suplex another shadow for good measure.
Three hours later.....
The clearing settled into rhythm after that. Bob gathered branches, Diana set them neatly with a pulse of psychic energy, and the fire was coaxed into life. Not by him fumbling with sticks—he gave up after the third try—but by Diana's controlled flick of heat. Sparks danced like fireflies before settling into steady flame.
The smell came soon after: roasted bird, sharp and unmistakable. Bob had skewered five Spearows—their feathers stripped, their bodies cleaned—and now they hissed over the coals. The fat popped, dripped, flared. Libre, perched close, fanned herself with her tail-heart and licked her lips in theatrical anticipation.
Ashley stirred. Her lashes fluttered, her breath caught, and then she pushed herself upright with a groan. Pikachu was still curled in her arms, out cold, but his nose twitched at the scent of cooking meat.
Ashley blinked blearily, rubbed her eyes, then froze. Her gaze locked on the skewers. Five Spearows, browned and steaming, turning gently over the fire. Her mouth opened, her voice caught, and then she burst out:
"You—you cooked them?! They were already down! How could you—how could you do that?!"
Bob didn't flinch. He shifted one stick, let the grease drip into the coals, and answered quietly. "Because if I didn't, we'd all go hungry."
Her arms tightened around Pikachu, clutching him like a shield. "Pokémon are our partners, not food!"
The words came fierce, sharp—but her stomach betrayed her. It growled, long and angry, echoing across the clearing. Her face went crimson. Pikachu whimpered in his sleep, muzzle twitching as though even unconscious he could smell the meal.
Bob's eyes were steady. "In the wild, Pokémon eat Pokémon. That's how it's always been. Pidgeottos swallow Rattata whole. Arbok squeeze life out of Pidgeys. Pretending it isn't true doesn't make you noble—it makes you blind."
Ashley shook her head, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "That's not what being a trainer means! We're supposed to protect them!"
Diana moved before Bob could answer. Tall and calm, she extended one skewer toward Ashley, eyes glowing faintly. Not threatening. Not asking. Simply certain. Eat. Libre punctuated the moment with a double thump of her tail, smug as ever.
Ashley's throat worked. She wanted to scream, to refuse. And then hunger slammed through her belly, worse than the shame. She reached out, trembling, and took the skewer.
"I don't want this," she whispered.
"No one does," Bob said, softer now. "But surviving doesn't care what you want."
The first bite broke her. Smoke, salt, guilt, and hunger all at once. She chewed, tears sliding down her cheeks, while Pikachu stirred awake, sniffed the air, and wriggled free of her grip to tear into his own share with instinct older than training.
One Spearow for each of them. Five lives for five mouths. Libre devoured hers like a champion raising a trophy. Diana ate with quiet elegance, unbothered by judgment. Bob chewed steadily, eyes steady on the fire.
Ashley wept as she swallowed—but she kept eating.
The fire burned low into embers, the night fading into silence. Aqua, who never missed a chance to chirp or heckle, said nothing at all. It almost startled Bob — the quiet was heavier without her voice cutting through it. Maybe even she knew that tonight wasn't the time.
---
The Next Morning
Gray dawn slid across the treeline when Bob stirred. The air was damp and cool, and the smoke of last night's fire hung faint in the clearing. He sat up slowly, rubbing grit from his eyes, only to hear a soft, tired groan from the other side of the camp.
Ashley was awake. Pikachu was curled in her arms, but the little mouse's cheeks sparked faintly in feverish flickers, and his body shivered in a way that had nothing to do with cold. Beside that, Ashley herself wasn't faring much better. Her jaw was set, trying to hide it, but every few moments her limbs twitched in sharp spasms — phantom echoes of the wounds Diana had healed.
Bob crouched beside her. "Muscle pain?"
She bit her lip, stubborn, but finally nodded. "Feels like… like it's all still there. Just less bloody."
He looked toward the path they'd been following. "Next town's a mile, maybe less. We're not staying here another night. I'll carry you."
Her head jerked up. "You don't have to—"
"You can barely stand," Bob cut her off gently, already crouching down with his back turned toward her. "Pikachu too. You'll both just get worse if you push it. So… on my back. No arguing."
She hesitated, swallowing pride and instinct both. In the end she tucked Pikachu carefully into her bag, the mouse sighing weakly but nestling against the fabric. She shifted closer, hands uncertain, then looped her arms around his shoulders. Slowly, she lowered herself onto his back.
The first step jarred them both, but Bob adjusted, steadying his balance, Diana gliding silently alongside like a tall shadow, and Libre strutting ahead as if she were leading a parade.
For a long while Ashley said nothing. Her head rested against his shoulder, the faint weight of her breathing steady against his back. The road wound forward, the town just beyond the horizon.
When her voice finally came, it was small but clear. "...Thanks. For helping."
Bob didn't answer right away. He only hitched her weight higher, tightened his grip on her legs, and kept walking.
The mile felt short. The words stayed long.