"Darkrai, is anything tailing us?" Reiji didn't love the idea of Professor Oak keeping tabs on him, so he'd left Pallet Town first instead of setting out with Ash.
New Trainers who started from Pallet Town were always… special. Reiji couldn't afford to be careless. If Oak decided to take an interest in him, things would get messy fast.
"No," Darkrai said. "While we were still in the Town, something kept watching us—barely there, but real. Once we left, that gaze disappeared."
"Heh. So you do care." Reiji lay back against a thick tree trunk, a Berry rolling up and down in his hand as he chuckled under his breath. Pallet Town's strongest Trainer really was on guard around outsiders.
"Darkrai, go check on Ash. See if anything's following him."
"There is," Darkrai answered almost immediately. "That Dragonite from yesterday."
"Dragonite…" Reiji tossed the Berry once, caught it, and frowned. "Oak really is watching him."
If that Dragonite was around, Reiji couldn't intercept Ho-Oh quietly anymore. He needed Ho-Oh's help to bring Amber back, and he couldn't risk anyone—or anything—interrupting that.
"That Dragonite is strong," Darkrai added. "In a straight fight, I'm not beating it."
Reiji's eyes narrowed. "It probably doesn't even know you exist. Can you land a Dark Void from the shadows and put it to sleep?"
"I can." Darkrai nodded. "I'll stay nearby and drop it quietly."
Reiji turned to the shadow at his feet. "Gengar, once Ho-Oh shows up, you put Ash and Pikachu to sleep. They can't remember seeing us."
"Gen-gen." Gengar's head rose out of the darkness and it nodded, the grin on its face staying exactly the same.
"After you knock them out, come straight back," Reiji said. "To revive Amber, you'll need to spit up the jars you swallowed. All four of them."
His thoughts flicked to the four clone bodies. He hoped he'd actually need them—because the alternative was Ho-Oh casually rebuilding Amber's body from nothing. Reiji wasn't arrogant enough to think he could ask for something that huge without paying some kind of price.
Whatever the price was, he'd still do it. No hesitation.
Ash wouldn't run into Ho-Oh until the afternoon, which meant Reiji still had time.
"Kyaa, kyaa…"
Reiji froze mid-toss. That cry—he knew it.
"Spearow?" He sat up as Darkrai returned.
"It's Ash," Darkrai reported. "He threw a pebble and enraged a flock of Spearow. They're chasing him."
Reiji laughed, almost nostalgic. "Right. That scene."
He waved Darkrai off. "Keep watching. Don't show yourself. If Dragonite hasn't moved, neither do we. And if I remember right, this is where we run into the first heroine—Misty."
"Misty?" Darkrai clearly had no idea who that was, but it sank back into the shadows and kept tailing Ash.
When Darkrai returned again, it gave the play-by-play: Ash got chased into a river, fell in, got fished out by a girl, then stole her bike and took off.
"Alright," Reiji said, pulling up his face covering. He raised the hood of his stab-resistant jacket, mounted Pelipper, and stayed low—flying through the trees instead of open sky to avoid Dragonite's notice.
He arrived ahead of them at the crash site—where Ash would wipe out after riding too fast. Rain started falling again, light at first, then heavier. Thunder rumbled inside the clouds.
"Darkrai. Gengar." Reiji stood under a tree, one hand on his hood. The rain slid off his jacket without soaking through. "Get ready. And Gengar—spit the jars out."
"Gen-gen." Gengar produced four canisters from somewhere that absolutely shouldn't have been possible.
Reiji popped them open and pulled out what was inside: three clone bodies for the Kanto starters, plus Amber's clone body.
He wrapped Amber in a blanket immediately, then had Gengar swallow the empty jars again to block the signal as long as possible.
This was Viridian Forest. Viridian Gym—Giovanni's territory—was close. If Team Rocket had already picked up the signal even once, he needed to finish this fast.
...
"Pikachu…" Ash crashed hard into the mud. He stared at Pikachu's battered body, then grit his teeth through the pain and crawled toward it. His hand shook as he reached out and touched Pikachu gently.
"Kyaa, kyaa!" The Spearow caught up, shrieking as lightning cut across the sky. Ash had nowhere left to run.
"Pikachu—get back in the Poké Ball." Ash's voice wobbled as he forced the words out. "I know you hate it… but it's the only way you might survive this."
He set the Poké Ball down and turned to face the flock alone, screaming up at them, "What do you think I am?! I'm Ash from Pallet Town! I'm going to become the number-one Pokémon Master in the world! I'm not losing to you! I'll catch every last one of you!"
"Pikachu—please! Get in the Poké Ball! Get in!"
"Come on, Spearow! I'm not scared of you!"
"Kyaa, kyaa!"
Pikachu looked at the Poké Ball, then looked at Ash—the boy it had met today, standing in front of it anyway.
...
Thunder. Rain. The "villains" closing in. The loud, reckless rookie shouting bravado into the storm. Even now, it was still an iconic scene.
Reiji watched from the trees and understood why people talked about it for decades.
Pikachu didn't return to the Poké Ball. It pushed itself up and sprinted for Ash instead, using his shoulder as a springboard to launch into the air—then fired off Thunder at full power.
The sky turned white.
The storm boosted the strike, and the blast didn't just drop the Spearow—it sent Ash flying too.
"Sure, 'can't battle,'" Reiji muttered under his breath. "And then you're throwing out Thunder on day one."
As the roar faded, the storm finally broke apart. The clouds thinned, the rain eased, and the Spearow tumbled to the ground. Ash and Pikachu lay sprawled in the mud, motionless. Sunlight pushed through, and a rainbow formed at the edge of the clearing.
Reiji's eyes sharpened. The rainbow meant only one thing.
No time to admire the view. The best "photographer" in the Pokémon world was about to show up.
"It's here," Darkrai said quietly.
Reiji didn't ask how it knew. Darkrai's voice alone carried the weight of it.
"That aura…" Darkrai swallowed. "I've never sensed anything like it. Even stronger than Mewtwo."
"Finally." Reiji stared up through the branches at the seven-colored glow in the sky. "Darkrai, Gengar—do it clean. Put Dragonite and Ash to sleep and get back. I'll handle Ho-Oh."
Ho-Oh appeared through the gap in the treetops, gliding through the post-storm light right on cue—as if it had never missed a single appointment in its life.
"Now," Reiji said. "Move."
Pelipper cried out once.
Darkrai slipped out from behind the cloud cover, emerging from Dragonite's shadow, and fired Dark Void straight into it.
Dragonite hadn't even decided whether to intervene yet. The attack landed, its eyes went heavy, and it crashed down unconscious not far from Ash.
At almost the same moment, Gengar's red eyes flashed. Ash and Pikachu—already exhausted—caught one look and simply collapsed into sleep.
Reiji didn't wait. He mounted Pelipper and burst out of the forest, aiming straight for Ho-Oh.
Ho-Oh looked genuinely caught off guard by the sudden approach, but Reiji didn't slow down.
"Ho-Oh!" Reiji called, holding Amber close as Pelipper hovered in front of the Legendary Pokémon. "Please—save this child. And these three Pokémon."
Ho-Oh's eyes swept over him once.
Then it looked at Amber.
One glance was enough for it to see the truth: a body with no soul.
"It says the child is gone," Darkrai translated from Reiji's shadow. "What you're holding is only a shell."
Reiji didn't blink. "Darkrai—bring out Amber's soul, and the other three as well."
Darkrai raised a hand, and four lights appeared in its palm—four distinct consciousnesses, pulled from the nightmare realm in an instant.
Reiji lifted them toward Ho-Oh. "Ho-Oh. Her soul is here. Her body is here. Please—bring her back."
Ho-Oh hesitated.
It hadn't expected a human to be prepared like this.
Then its gaze sharpened again, cold and questioning.
Why should it?
"It says, 'Why?'" Darkrai's voice tightened. "It doesn't understand why it should help some stranger."
Reiji kept his voice steady. "Two days ago, did you sense the storm over the sea? That wasn't nature. Humans made a monster—an unnatural Pokémon—and it's in a nearby city right now."
He didn't soften it. He didn't dress it up.
"That child," Reiji continued, "is the one person who can reach it. Let her fix what humans broke. Please. Save her."
Ho-Oh didn't answer right away.
The instant Amber's soul appeared, Ho-Oh had already seen everything: the lab. Mewtwo's birth. Its isolation. Amber meeting it in the mind-space, the quiet friendship that formed there. A father's obsession, sharp enough to cut through death itself.
Even with all of that in front of it, Ho-Oh's reply came back through telepathy—flat and distant.
"Human. That is a monster your kind created."
Reiji stiffened. He'd heard it clearly, no translation needed.
"Ho-Oh," he said again, refusing to let go. "She has a bond with that Pokémon. They were friends. If anyone can stop it, it's her. Please."
Ho-Oh's wings shifted.
The air around it changed.
It was leaving.
"It says it won't get involved," Darkrai whispered. "It's going."
Reiji didn't look up at Ho-Oh.
He looked down.
Ash slept in the mud below. The forest stretched out beyond him. Wild Pokémon moved through the trees, unaware of anything—living their small, ordinary lives in a world that still felt safe.
Reiji's arms tightened around Amber.
He didn't scream. He didn't beg anymore.
His stare turned empty, and the thought that followed was darker than anything he'd said out loud.
"Reiji," Darkrai said quietly, a rough edge creeping into its voice. "I can sense it. That darkness in you—it's getting stronger."
Ho-Oh stopped mid-flight.
It had felt it too.
This human's malice wasn't subtle. It spilled out like a beacon in the night—aimed at the world below, undisguised.
For a heartbeat, Ho-Oh compared it to Darkrai's own darkness.
This was worse.
Ho-Oh's eyes widened slightly, like it had only just realized what it was about to create by refusing.
"We're leaving," Reiji said at last.
He held Amber close, expression unreadable.
If he couldn't find another way to bring her back in the next half month, he'd find somewhere beautiful and bury her. He'd spend whatever time remained with her in the nightmare realm, because that would be the only thing he could still do.
And after that?
He'd keep moving. He'd still enter the Indigo Plateau Conference. He was weak now—but that wouldn't last forever. Once he climbed high enough, once he had real power inside the League, he'd wager everything he had and make this world pay.
Promises were promises. The vow he'd made to Poliwhirl mattered. The vow he'd made to Amber mattered too.
And no matter which life he lived, one truth stayed the same.
It was still a damn world.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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