"Are you kidding me? That's your hello?" Reiji saw the Thunder coming down and barely had time to shout, "Gengar!"
White swallowed his vision.
Lightning was light, after all. Sound never stood a chance.
Gengar sprang out of his shadow and caught the blast with Protect. Then it looked up at the bird in the clouds and snapped, "We saved you yesterday, and now you're trying to fry us? Maybe calm down before you start blasting people?"
Raikou recognized Gengar first.
"You," it said, its voice carrying straight into Reiji's mind. "Why are you with a human?"
Zapdos had seen Gengar too. It waited until the glare faded, still glaring down from the clouds.
"He's my Trainer," Gengar said, sounding deeply tired. "He's also the one who sent me to save you two last night."
It explained what had happened in a few quick bursts, then sank back into Reiji's shadow.
Raikou looked across the lake at Reiji. "Human, we misunderstood."
"Telepathy?" Reiji turned toward the voice.
It wasn't Lokoko. This voice was deeper, heavier, and clearly male.
So Raikou could speak directly into people's minds.
Zapdos, meanwhile, had no intention of apologizing. Reiji hadn't expected one anyway. The Legendary birds had always been proud, especially around humans weaker than them.
"Yes," Raikou said. "We came here to heal. That is all."
With the misunderstanding cleared up, Raikou stepped into the lake and lowered itself into the water. Its whole body seemed to loosen the moment the lake covered its wounds.
Zapdos finally stopped treating Reiji like a target. It landed beside Raikou, though it stayed close to the shore and refused to go too deep. Yesterday's capture had clearly left a mark.
By sunset, the tension had mostly faded.
Reiji let his Pokémon out for dinner, then had Gengar carry supplies across the lake: medicine for frostbite, Antidotes, burn treatment, painkillers, healing sprays, and Pokéblocks of every type. He didn't know what flavor Legendary Pokémon liked, so he sent a little of everything.
Gengar rose from the lakeside shadow near the two Legendaries, set the supplies down, and explained how to use them before slipping back to Reiji.
Raikou looked at the supplies, then glanced toward Reiji.
It accepted them.
Both Legendaries were in rough shape. Team Rocket had tried to catch them again during the chaos, and they had fought hard before Dragonite finally created an opening for them to escape.
Raikou lifted the healing spray with psychic power and treated its own wounds. When it saw the effect was decent, it sprayed Zapdos's injured wing too.
The Antidote smelled terrible, but Raikou recognized it. It drank some, then made Zapdos take some as well. They had both been poisoned badly the night before.
Once the wounds were handled, Raikou pulled over the Pokéblocks.
It had eaten human-made food before. Pokéblocks were one of the few things that actually suited its taste, so it treated them like snacks.
Zapdos acted above it all at first, as if human food wasn't worth touching.
That lasted until it tried one.
The proud act disappeared immediately.
Spicy Fire-type Pokéblocks, gentle Water-type Pokéblocks, crackling Electric-type Pokéblocks—Zapdos tried them one after another and liked more of them than it wanted to admit.
Pokémon didn't have to eat only Pokéblocks that matched their type. Matching ones helped growth more, but for Legendaries, that tiny benefit meant very little. Flavor mattered more. For them, soaking in the lake probably did more than any handful of Pokéblocks.
Reiji had prepared plenty: fruit flavors, Berry flavors, vegetable flavors, sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, salty. Enough for the two Legendaries to find something they liked.
After eating, Raikou looked toward the three unconscious Electric-type Pokémon in the water.
"Human. What happened to them?"
Now that it had accepted Reiji's food and medicine, Raikou clearly meant to return the favor. A Legendary beast could not exactly take charity and pretend nothing had happened.
Reiji heard the voice in his mind again and looked across the lake. It was too dark to see Raikou clearly, but he knew where the voice came from.
He had Gengar carry a walkie-talkie over so he could answer properly.
"The Zapdos is mine. It was born with a genetic defect. Its mother was a Fearow, and those genes were stronger than they should have been. I brought it here so the lake could help it adapt to the electricity in its body. Last night, it probably absorbed your power, and now it won't wake up."
"Electivire was Team Rocket's test subject. It was the one they forced to absorb your electricity. It took in too much power, and then the lab exploded. It hasn't woken up either."
"Magnezone was trying to pull some of that power away from Electivire and keep it from bursting. It absorbed your electricity too. Same result."
Raikou went quiet.
So the three unconscious Pokémon were like this because of their power.
Zapdos turned its head away when Raikou looked at it.
What was it supposed to say? It had just been captured, drained, poisoned, and nearly taken away again. Of course it had been furious. It had thrown lightning everywhere. Where the electricity went after that was Team Rocket's fault.
"Leave them to us," Raikou said at last.
It rose from the lake. After several hours in the water, the pain had eased, and most of its strength had returned. For Raikou, this was no longer a difficult problem.
It leapt onto the shore near Reiji.
"Step back."
Reiji was still holding the walkie-talkie. He backed away at once.
Zapdos watched Raikou move, then lifted off from the water as well. It had eaten Reiji's Pokéblocks too. Pretending it had nothing to do with this would be shameful.
It flew above the three unconscious Pokémon and shook out its wings.
Golden feathers drifted down like sparks.
"Damn," Reiji muttered. "That's a lot of golden feathers…"
He immediately thought of the two he already had. One still shone with a rich golden light. The other was dry, dull, and almost dead. He took both out and had Gengar send them over.
Gengar carried the feathers with psychic power and let them fall near Zapdos.
The withered feather touched the lake beside it and changed almost instantly. The dried barbs smoothed out. The dull yellow brightened into gold.
Zapdos glanced at Reiji.
So the human had something like that.
The revived feather was ordinary to it, maybe Elite Four-tier at most. Zapdos could scatter feathers like that with one casual wingbeat.
The other feather was different.
That one carried a faint pressure. Zapdos knew the feeling at once. The bird that had shed it was stronger than it was. Champion tier, most likely.
That was the only reason Zapdos gave Reiji another look.
A human with something like that was at least a little less boring.
Golden feathers kept falling into the water.
Raikou stood on the shore and sent electricity into the three unconscious Pokémon. Zapdos followed by calling storm clouds back over the lake. It rose into the dark cloudbank, gathered the lightning around itself, then drove a thick pillar of thunder down into the water.
Reiji stood far back, fists tight, watching the lake flash gold.
The feathers floating across the surface dissolved into thin streams of light and flowed into his Zapdos.
The lightning did not last long.
When it faded, the lake went quiet again. Raikou stepped back into the water. Zapdos descended from the clouds.
Before Reiji could run over to check, the lake exploded.
A great golden bird shot out of the water and rushed straight into the storm clouds.
Two more bursts followed.
A round, golden body rose into the air with a mechanical cry.
Then a third golden figure landed on the shore and beat its fists against its chest, roaring as if it had finally found a way to vent everything trapped inside it.
Thunder rolled overhead.
The first shape emerged from the clouds.
Reiji had seen that outline before, but never like this.
Zapdos descended through the storm, wrapped in yellow lightning. Electric arcs snapped through the air around its wings.
It cried out, and the sound rang across the whole lake.
Then it released the largest Thunder it had ever fired.
The bolt plunged straight into the crystal at the bottom of the lake.
Magnezone followed, adding its own Thunder to the same target.
Electivire stood on the shore, its long fur standing on end, golden light pouring off its body. It threw its own Thunder into the lake as well.
The three attacks went on for several minutes.
When the lightning finally stopped, the clouds broke apart. Night still covered the forest, but the crystal beneath the lake had been fully charged. Soft blue light spread through the water, turning the whole lake into a quiet glow.
Reiji barely noticed.
He ran out from the trees the moment the lightning ended and shouted toward the sky.
"Zapdos!"
He didn't know if it still remembered him.
He didn't know if it would stay.
"Zaa…"
His voice dropped on the second call.
Zapdos looked down at him from the moonlit sky.
Reiji lifted a hand, then let it fall again.
Maybe this was where it left.
Maybe a Legendary Pokémon was never meant to stay with a human Trainer. Maybe he had been greedy from the start.
He lowered his head before he could watch it fly away. His fingers tightened at his sides.
A soft cry came from right in front of him.
Reiji looked up.
Zapdos had landed beside him.
"Zapdos?"
He reached out and hugged it before he could stop himself.
For a moment, he had really thought it was leaving.
Zapdos stood still and drew the electricity back under its feathers so it wouldn't shock him. Against his arms, there was only warm, smooth gold.
"It's asking what's wrong," Lokoko translated.
"Nothing." Reiji wiped at his eyes. "I'm just happy."
He had raised this little Legendary from a half-dead, half-formed bird into this. If it had flown away now, he honestly didn't know what he would have done.
Magnezone floated down soon after and greeted him.
Electivire stayed where it was, looking from Raikou and the wild Zapdos in the lake, then back to Reiji and his Zapdos.
It clearly had no idea where it fit.
It did not just fail to recognize Reiji. The whole world around it felt unfamiliar. The lake, the forest, the Pokémon, the human standing beside it—none of it made sense yet.
Reiji still had his arms around Zapdos.
"You did it," he said quietly. "You can finally fly wherever you want now."
He meant it.
Zapdos had been born too early, slept through most of its early life, and nearly died from the electricity inside its own body. It had gone from a gray, sickly little bird into a real Zapdos at last.
That road had been far too hard.
Zapdos was happy too.
At last, it could fight beside Reiji. It didn't have to watch from the back anymore while the others came home covered in wounds. It didn't have to stand uselessly in a victory photo after everyone else had earned the win.
Now it could help.
It was Zapdos.
"Everyone, come out."
Reiji let go and released the rest of his Pokémon. They deserved to see this. The little brother who had spent most of its life sleeping had finally finished its transformation.
Umbreon jumped onto Reiji's shoulder first. Its eyes lit up the moment it saw Zapdos.
"Bree! You look beautiful!"
Rhydon studied Zapdos for a moment, then gave the most Rhydon compliment possible.
"Your feathers finally grew in."
Reiji had long since given up on Rhydon's sense of tact. If it wasn't food, it wasn't getting delicate treatment.
Pelipper stared at the golden feathers, completely captivated.
Pidgeot moved closer and brushed its beak gently against Zapdos.
"You've changed so much."
Pelipper immediately moved in too, refusing to fall behind. Zapdos was golden now, powerful, bright, and unmistakably a bird worth noticing.
Scyther rubbed one blade against the other. Silver flashed under the moonlight.
"So you finally grew up. Wonder how strong you are now."
Then it glanced toward the wild Zapdos still soaking in the lake.
The blades stopped moving.
Scyther turned away, whistling like it had never been interested, and went to bother Toxicroak by the trees instead.
Testing its own teammate was fine.
That giant bird in the lake was not.
Scyther loved a good fight, but it was not stupid. It knew which opponents were better left alone.
It could wait for Poliwrath to come back.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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