The Electric Slide (Story from AO3) by ToukoTai
“Hm?” Spark peered up at Blanche from the egg he was currently polishing with a soft cloth.
“Have you ever, actually caught a wild pokemon?”
“What?” Spark nearly dropped the egg. “Of course I’ve caught a wild pokemon! What trainer hasn’t?” He started laughing in such a nervous way that Blanche had to squint suspiciously at him. “What kind of trainer would I-why would you think that?”
“Every pokemon you’ve ever shown me has been one you hatched yourself. And the parents are pokemon we’ve supplied.” Blanche pointed out, watching as Spark scratched the back of his head, his eyes looking anywhere but at Blanche. “I was wondering if you’d ever caught one yourself.”
“What’s going on in here?” Candela poked her head into the room.
“I was asking Spark if he’d ever caught a wild pokemon.” Candela laughed.
“Well of course he has.” She stopped suddenly and turned to Spark. “Haven’t you?” Sparks’ face was the picture of betrayal. “It’s just, I’ve never seen one you caught before.”
“I’ll have you know,” Spark began with wounded dignity. “One time I caught a fearow.” Both Blanche and Candela stared at him in silence until he broke down. “Okay, I thought it was a fearow, at the time.”
“Was it a spearow?” Candela teased, the reaction was not what the two expected.
“OhlookatthetimeIhavetogobye!” Spark gently snatched up the egg and booked it.
“Professor, you get all the wild pokemon we send you, correct?” Willow didn’t even bother looking up from the pidgey in his heavily gloved hands.
“I don’t even need to dignify that with an answer.” He said, extracting his finger from the pidgey’s beak.
“Has Spark ever sent you any wild caught pokemon?”
“No, he’s a breeder.” Willow looked up from his work briefly to eye the two team leaders lounging around his work station. “You both know that.” Blanche leaned against the desk.
“Yes, we do. When I asked him if he’d ever caught a pokemon he was…” Blanche stopped, trying to find the right wording. “Elusive?” That didn’t quite describe the interesting encounter, but it was the best Blanche could do.
“Wait.” Professor Willow paused, fully looking at the two team leaders, in his hands the pidgey struggled on. “You asked Spark about the first pokemon he caught?”
“No. I merely asked him if he’d ever caught a pokemon.”
“He’s only caught the one.” Blanche didn’t like the dawning look of glee in Willow’s eyes.
“He said it was a fearow.” Candela filled in. Both jumped when Willow burst out in barking laughter.
“Did he not catch a pokemon then?” Willow managed to get himself under control, shaking his head.
“Oh no, he certainly caught a wild pokemon alright.” Professor Willow said. “It just wasn’t a fearow.” Willow had a brief flash of the first time he’d met Spark. As a small boy wandering out on a route, calling for his fearow and when that fearow showed up, the only thing Willow had been able to say was That’s not a fearow.
“But he said he’d caught a fearow.” Candela pulled Willow back out of his thoughts. Something wasn’t adding up to her. Spark didn’t lie, it was practically unheard of.
“No,” Blanche corrected absently. “What he said was he thought it was a fearow. At the time.” Willow’s shoulder shook, though he deftly clamped a tracker on the squawking pidgey’s leg.
“Let me put it to you this way, when it came to Sparks’ first wild pokemon, his instincts were dead wrong.” Which didn’t seem completely possible, Sparks’ intuition was never wrong.
“It wasn’t a fearow, was it?” Willow’s snort was filled with entirely too much humor.
“The only thing a fearow and the pokemon Sparks caught have in common is being vaguely bird shaped.”
“A Pidegotto?” Candela tried, Willow only grinned at them. “A pidgeot?” He looked extremely amused. Almost too amused.
“You should ask him. Directly.” Willow turned back to the pidgey, settling it back into its temporary cage. “I’m sure with the right prodding he’d introduce you.”
“He still has the pokemon?”
“Of course,” Willow snickered to himself, already pulling a Rattata out of its enclosure. “That kind of pokemon, is the kind that stays.”
Blanche didn’t quite understand what Willow meant by that until a small cadre of rockets got the drop on them two weeks later.
And Spark only had one battling pokemon on hand.
The majesty of a legendary pokemon is a little lost when there’s a shouting match going on right behind you though.
“You mistook zapdos for a fearow?” Candela snagged Spark’s ear in a tight grip, yanking him closer to perfect berating range.
“I was five at the time!” Spark yelled back, as if that made a difference, eyes squinting from the pain.
“A zapdos for a fearow?” Was repeated louder and with more force.
“The feathers looked the same!” Blanche studied zapdos as it flipped through the air, dive-bombing its opponent. Nope, couldn’t see any sign of a fearow there.
“They look nothing alike!” Candela shrieked, Blanche mutely nodded.
“I was five! I’d never seen a fearow before! Or zapdos!”
Yes, Blanche thought, watching as a bright yellow legend dove out of a thundercloud scattering rockets like leaves, arcs of lightning playing around its claws, zapdos is the kind of pokemon that stays.
One sunny afternoon, several years in the past, a young boy headed out of Celadon city, finally free from his guardians’’ watchful eyes. He stumbled over a few rocks, fought with a rather clingy bush and fell out of the underbrush into a wide open meadow with a derelict rotting rusty metal building at the other end.
Dusting himself off, the boy set out across the meadow in a straight path, that slightly zigged and zagged to avoid the wild pokemon in the area, to his destination: the falling apart building.
He’d heard the talk in the town, the power plant was the place to go for electric pokemon. And the boy was quite enamored with the idea of catching a pikachu. Pokemon were supposed to make the best friends and the little boy was rather short of those. Moving around Kanto as his family did, did not leave time for long term friends.
But a pikachu would move with him.
So he’d decided to catch himself a pikachu. He already had a name picked out for it and everything. Zappy! (The hands down greatest name for a pikachu, in Spark’s humble opinion.)
And the best place to catch a pikachu would be the old powerplant. Spark had scrounged and saved and bought himself a greatball. There was no way he was walking away from the powerplant without a pikachu.
Getting into the building proved to be the most difficult part of the journey. The main entrance doors were chained closed, but a window on the side was missing a pane of glass just big enough for him to wriggle through.
He didn’t quite stick the dismount though, luckily a pile of empty cardboard boxes broke his fall.
Spark battled his way out of the pile, kicking at one determined box, until it flew off his foot and slid across the ground. Stopping right in front of a wild pikachu.
Spark froze and then slowly reached into his pocket, pulling out the greatball.
The pikachu froze, stared at him, sniffed the air and just as Spark was winding up to throw, bolted.
“Hey wait!” He shouted, stuffing the greatball back in shorts’ pocket. “Come back! I wanna catch you!” He took off after the pikachu, following the bobbing yellow tail deeper and deeper into the powerplant.
They went through several hallways, into and out of office spaces, until finally Spark tripped on the threshold of a room and bit the dust face first. The pikachu disappeared into the gloom.
“Ow, ow, ow.” Spark sat up, there was a long fresh cut on his leg, blood slowly welled up as did tears of pain. He sniffed loudly, trying not to bawl. He wasn’t a crybaby, despite what the children at his new school said!
To distract himself from the pain and blood, he looked around the new room he was in. It was dark and filled with broken computer equipment. Located in the darkest corner of the room was a huge nest made out of cables, light fixtures and old desk chair cushions.
And in the nest was the largest pokemon Spark had ever seen. It had bright feathers, a long sharp looking beak and the angriest eyes ever.
“Woooow!” Spark gasped, as the pokemon loomed out of its nest. In the darkness and gloom of the abandoned powerplant, it glowed. “You’re the biggest fearow I’ve ever seen!” (technically, the only fearow Spark had ever seen.)The fearow seemed taken aback at that and its angry countenance vanished into confusion and curiosity. Spark paid that no mind.
“Did you see a pikachu come here?” He asked innocently. The fearow hopped closer to him, large head tilting from side to side as it studied him. “I was trying to catch him but he was too fast for me.” The fearow crouched lower, settling itself more on Spark’s height, angry black eyes staring at him unblinking.
Spark wasn’t the least bit frightened. Pokemon were friends afterall! All the tv shows said so. He absently reached out a hand and steadied himself against the long beak as he stood up. Wobbling a little when he finally got his feet.
“I really want an electric type, they’re supposed to be…um…en-er-ge-tic.” Spark carefully sounded the longer word out. “Like me! If I got one, it would be my friend and we’d have all sorts of adventures!” Spark looked around the dark room, but aside from the fearow and the fearow’s nest, there wasn’t any pikachu or any other pokemon around. He drooped, hand sliding off the beak of the fearow.
“But I was too slow and I couldn’t catch him and now I’m gonna be late for dinner and I got hurt and I’m gonna be in so much trouble.” Once he’d gotten started Spark found he couldn’t stop and now he really was crying. The fearow leaned toward him, sharp beak brushing through his hair in regular strokes, occasionally tugging a strand or two this way or that.
It was calming, eventually Spark cried himself out. The fearow was now right next to him, tired and exhausted, Spark leaned against the yellow feathered chest of the larger pokemon.
“I wanna go home.” Spark mumbled. The fearow shudder all over and Spark stumbled back from the movement. With the extra space it now had, it bent down, presenting its wide back. Spark patted its side, delicately grabbing hold of a few feathers.
“You gonna take me home?” The fearow nodded once. “‘Kay.” He heaved himself up onto the pokemon’s back, clutching the feathers tightly in his fingers. Once he was securely in place, the fearow stood up to its full height and began to move. It stalked out of the room and down a short hallway, until it came to an open office area, with a large part of the ceiling crumbled away.
Spark squinted against the sudden light from the setting sun.
He felt the fearow bunch underneath him, muscles coiling, legs crouching down, the wings rustling loosely at its sides. Without even making a sound the fearow shot into the air.
Well, the fearow didn’t make a sound, Spark was busy happily screaming as powerful wing beats carried them higher and higher into the early evening sky. The sun turning the clouds fiery red and cotton candy pink as it set behind the mountain range. The first bright stars were already appearing like little pin pricks in the darker blue sky.
Okay, so fearow wasn’t a pikachu, Spark reflected on the ride back to Celadon, the wind rushing past his ears and making a worse mess of his hair. But fearow was so much cooler! Pikachu couldn’t fly, pikachu wouldn’t be able to carry him on its back like Fearow was, not even raichu would be able to do this.
Spark peeked over fearow’s side, below them the world looked like one of his playmats, the one he played with the little racecars on. Everything was so small.
“There!” He flung out his arm to point. “That house with the blue roof!” Fearow flapped, gaining altitude and then banked gracefully. Spark let out a shout of delight as Fearow began a circling descent, finally landing with a minimal bump in the grass behind Spark’s house.
Spark slid off the fearow back not nearly as gracefully, losing his balance halfway through to fall on his back on the grass. Fearow peered over him, a mildly concerned croon coming from its throat. Spark jumped to his feet and brushed his pants off.
“I’m okay!” He held up both of his hands to show how un-scraped and okay he was. Fearow seemed satisfied, rocking back on its talons and ruffling its wings. It didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave. In his pocket, the empty greatball tugged on his attention, he fished it out and held it in his hands.
Well, maybe. If he asked, nicely of course. Fearow was so much more awesome then a pikachu.
“Thank you,” Spark told the fearow. Now that he was in his own backyard, everything was going to be okay. He knew that. “Do you, would you like to be my pokemon?” He asked in a sudden rush, holding the greatball out.
Silence. A pidgey chirruped in the woods.
Finally, the fearow leaned down, and tapped the greatball with its beak. In a flash of red light it vanished into the greatball. Spark almost fell from the lack of a body to lean against. He watched the greatball with wide eyes. It shook three times and stopped, the light on the front clicked off. With shaking hands, Spark carefully picked the greatball up, it felt warm to the touch, easily dwarfing his small hands.
He pressed the button and the fearow was back, fluffing out its wings and looking pleased with itself.
“We are gonna have so much fun.” Spark told it seriously.
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