Chapter Text
*Ka-DING!*
Davis stared intently at his Game Boy Color, the unlit LCD screen barely visible between the strokes of intense sunlight and blackening shadows that peered through the car window from the passing trees. Still, it was more than enough to play his favorite battle simulator: Pocket Monsters Pikachu. The world around him melted away as he immersed himself in the digital world of Pokémon, smiling as he traveled in the footsteps of the world-famous Masara Town trainer, Red, alongside his chosen partner – a small yellow mouse known as Pikachu.
“The mission behind our newest Pokémon title for the Game Boy Color is simple: we want to make the Pokémon Encyclopedia – known in the international market as the Pokédex – and all its benefits available to as many aspiring Pokémon Trainers as possible,” a company spokesperson could be heard saying over the radio. “Thanks to advancements in the Nintendo Game Boy Color, we can now capture and analyze Pokémon energy signatures using infrared technology, building upon the pioneering research of Dr. Yukinari Ohkido – or as most people know him by his radio personality, Professor Oak – and bring that data directly into the hands of everyday Pokémon Trainers. As such, we have added this functionality directly into the cartridge of our new Special Pikachu Edition game.”
Davis peaked up to the radio, then looked at his Game Boy Color, and checked the Pokédex scan function – listed on the menu as ‘STAT’ on the menu. Aiming the camera out the window, the screen showed a rudimentary IR camera screen, scanning nearby heat signatures… but nothing happened.
“Children are already spending hours on their Game Boy systems, and through our collaboration with Nintendo, we’re transforming that very playtime into an opportunity for learning and discovery. With this new scanning feature, players can identify Pokémon and access battle data in real time – a breakthrough that’s set to reshape the growing Pokémon Trainer community. Following Champion Red’s remarkable victory over the Sekiei League’s Shiten’nō – or the Elite Four, as our international listeners might know them – we’ve seen a surge of young Trainers who dream of reaching the same heights. Our hope is that this innovation – paired with inspiring multimedia franchises like the anime featuring Satoshi – we can inspire a new generation of prodigies, like Red and Green, to pursue their own journeys and become Champions across the world.”
The boy sighed with relief as he finally crossed the in-game border into Hanada City and left his Pokémon in the care of the Pokémon Center nurse. He looked over to the baby seat next to him and smiled at his baby brother who was fast asleep before looking back at his game.
“I heard that they’re building new League branches across the world right now. France is setting up its Kalos League, they’re building a Unova League in the United States… even a bunch of unofficial leagues in other countries. I wonder if the Canadian Government will set one up here,” Davis’s father said. “Probably won’t happen though. The government would fuck up the Lord’s Prayer if they knew it.”
“I heard that gym leaders are tough. It’s a whole new world from when we were kids.”
“No kidding. Used to cost an arm and a leg to get a Poké Ball, and now everyone’s got them.”
“Oh, here’s the spot! Davis, we’re here,” his mother said as she turned to him.
“Okay.”
Without taking his eyes from the screen, Davis unbuckled his seatbelt and walked into the fresh air of the Canisbay campground. His mother and father were already pulling out the tents and lawn chairs from the trunk of their dark garnet red ’89 Plymouth Reliant K as he wandered to the mouth of the campsite.
Site 88. It was always site 88. Maybe superstition, maybe coincidence, but as he looked briefly at the little wooden pole with its bright-yellow metal plate the boy recognized where he was immediately.
“Do you think he’ll come again?” he asked his father, excitedly.
“Hmm? Oh, you mean your little friend. Maybe. Who knows? We see him every year, but he might have moved on by now.”
“Do you think he’s bigger now?”
“Probably? Do they get any bigger than he was? I wouldn’t think about it too much. A braviary or noctowl probably got to it by now,” his father replied, aloofly, digging through the trunk for their camping equipment. “Hey, can you set up your tent? Your Mom’s already decided to start sitting around.”
The boy nodded, saved his game, and pocketed the Game Boy.
One pole at the time, Davis set up his little polyester yellow tent. Once it was ready to put in the air mattress, he grabbed a foot pump from the trunk and started excitedly hopping on it in the hopes it would somehow make it inflate faster so he could get back to his game. After several minutes of pumping, it turned out to be a hopeless endeavor as the mattress was barely any more inflated than it was when he rolled it out.
“Hey, hey, stop a minute,” his father said as he came to his side. “Look, see the hole here? The pump’s no good.”
“So, what do we do?”
His father looked to his mother, then back to him before reaching into the liner pocket of his denim jacket.
“Remember, Davis: being a man is about doing things the smart way, not the hardest.”
From his jacket, Davis’s father pulled out a metalic grey ball with a screw mechanism at its top. With three twists of the screw the top loosened, and as his father held the ball outward, he called out “Alright, come out Beatle!” with a smile.
The ball opened along its hinge, and from it came a flash of white light that eventually dimmed to reveal a small dog-like creature with a paintbrush for a tail.
“Grou?” the creature groaned as it looked at Davis’s father.
“Hey! How’s my little smeargle doing? Hope you weren’t too cramped up in there during the trip.”
Beatle barked, and smiled at its owner before smacking him in the face with the tip of its tail, leaving a big brown streak.
“Alright, alright! Help us out with this now, will you? Let’s show Mom how silly she is for thinking that learning gust was a stupid idea!”
Beatle nodded, then inhaled deeply before blowing into the air mattress’s valve. Within seconds the bed was fully blown up, but Beatle had yet to stop. As Beatle struggled to pull away from the mattress, the torrent of air coming from the Pokémon’s mouth launched Davis’s little yellow tent several feet into the air – poles, anchors, and liner – until it was snagged on a nearby tree.
“Ack, Beatle!” Davis’s father screamed as he shoved his left hand through his hair. “Now how are we going to get that down?”
“I told you it was a bad idea,” Davis’s mother finally chimed in as she attached a can of propane to the Coleman stove.
“Well, I don’t exactly see you helping with the tents,” his father muttered, trying his best to not be heard.
Beatle snickered.
Davis rolled his eyes and walked over to one of the lawn chairs, plopped himself into the seat, and pulled his Game Boy back out. With a button press, he turned Red to face a Pikachu, then pressed A.
“Kyuu!” the digital creature called out.
The boy smiled, and pressed it again, and once more the animation repeated. He pressed it once more, then again, and again in his childish amusement; but as he pressed it the sixth time the battery died, and in its place a small little squeak was heard.
Confused, the boy tilted his head before pressing it again.
“Ngyu!” the cry repeated.
He pulled the device to his ear and pressed it again.
“Ngyu!”
The boy held his game device out as far as he could in shock. As he pressed it once more, a pair of yellow and black triangular ears popped out from the top of his console.
Davis paused in silence as the ears wiggled about, and a pair of little yellow paws curled over the top of his Game Boy. The tiny paws trembled feebly as the creature they belonged to tried its best to pull itself over the device. With a smirk, Davis lowered the device to help the poor thing out.
“Pichu!” the boy cried out as the creature was revealed.
The boy’s mother and father looked over as they saw Davis pick up the baby Pokémon and nuzzle it, swinging himself around in circles as he held it close, sparks from the pichu’s cheeks shooting out in random directions as they spun about.
“I knew you’d still be here!” he cried out. “Hey Mom, can we start the fire?”
“It’s a bit early for that, we don’t need the light yet.”
“But I wanted to do marshmallows with Pichu…” he whined.
Davis’s mother scowled at him. “Hey, Wayne, are you hearing what your son is saying?”
“Davis, listen to your mom,” he replied, winded as he continued blowing into the air mattresses by mouth.
“But Dad, I want to make marshmallows with Pichu!”
“We can do that later. Why don’t you just go for a walk with Pichu instead?”
“Is that really a good idea?” his mom asked. “It’s a wild Pokémon, and it’s dangerous to go alone into a wild area.”
“What wild? It’s a campground. If you want wild, you gotta go back out to the Maritimes! Heck, when I was a kid we had to camp out with wild beartic going around. They weren’t such pushovers like the ursaring around here either!”
Davis’s mom gestured broadly at their surroundings. “You realize we got lycanroc in this area?”
“He’ll be fine. It’s a national park; the wild Pokémon know better than to attack anyone here. Besides, Pichu seems pretty reliable, and Davis’s been playing those simulator games for a while now. He should know his type advantages well enough to avoid getting into trouble. Ain’t that right, Davis?”
The boy nodded firmly.
“Fine,” his mother relented as she rolled her eyes. “But if you’re going to go for a walk, you can at least be useful. Take this water bag and fill it up. I can’t get it right now,” she explained as she took a crying infant out of the car.
Davis accepted the terms of the excursion and fetched the fold-a-carrier water bag from the trunk. Without further ado, he knelt down to let the wild pichu run up to his shoulder, and with that the two took off down the dirt road to collect some water.
The concrete monolith of a water tap was about three or four sites away from their own, just a few meters off to the side of the road. After forcing off the tight red cap, Davis popped the water carrier under the faucet and let it flow as fast as it could into the rubbery plastic container.
“I’m turning seven this year,” Davis said to the pichu. “That means I’m going to get into Grade Two this year! I’m going to start learning how to fight Pokémon, and how to catch them!”
“Ngyu?” it squeaked, confused.
“Oh, right… You probably don’t know what that is. Grade Two is for the real big kids! They go there to learn stuff, and they play, and they eat their sandwiches in the gym instead of the classroom!”
Pichu didn’t understand much, but it appeared excited by the prospect of sandwiches.
“You must be hungry,” he noted. “Here, I got a snack in my pocket. Let me see… It’s a granola bar! Look, I can read now. It says it here: Gr-an-o-la Bar!” he said while pointing at the Nutri-Grain logo. “This one is green, so that means leppa berry. I don’t like the green ones though, they taste more like nomel berries.”
Davis let go of the fold-a-carrier and opened the package – the water splashing about aimlessly as it was ignored in favor of breaking a piece off the snack bar for his little friend.
“Want to try a piece?”
Pichu nodded.
The two moved closer to the road and shared the bar. The chewy, soft, but not overly grainy texture mixed with the flavors left a dry feeling in his mouth that begged for a Capri-Sun to pair with – the thoughts of which quickly turned into a very real thirst, one he sought to quench from the water tap.
As the pair turned to face the tap, they were met with the jug crashing to the ground – the faucet sputtering and splashing water about with a steadily beating ‘plap’ sound on the concrete drain below.
“It’s okay. We’ll just… Uh-oh…” Davis said.
Pichu turned around and saw what had caused Davis’s concern. Before the two of them were several rockruff that had surrounded them in the time they had been enjoying their snacks – likely drawn by the smell.
Davis tried to turn on his Game Boy, but he remembered the battery had died. Desperate, he took off the back panel and twisted the batteries around – a trick he had picked up when his parents refused to give him new ones.
“Ka-ding!” sounded Davis’s Game Boy on the next attempt, the battery light barely lit as he aimed its IR sensor at the Pokémon before him.
“I’ve never seen these before, Pichu. They’re not in the Kanto Pokédex, so my Game Boy can’t read them,” David panicked as the battery gave out once more.
“Kyu!” growled the mouse Pokémon as it went on all fours, sparks flowing out of its reddish cheeks.
“I don’t know your attacks either, Pichu…” he mumbled, his hands clasped to his chest in fear.
Pichu pointed at his Game Boy with its tail, then at the rockruff, gesturing with determination.
“You want me to try telling you what to do anyway? Are you sure?”
“Kyu!”
Davis swallowed his fear. “Okay,” he muttered as he put away his device. The boy grabbed the tip of his Toronto Articunos baseball cap, then pointed at the wild Pokémon in the same way he had seen Red do so many times before on TV. “Let’s do this, Pichu!”
“Gyu!"
In his head, Davis could hear the Kantonian wild battle theme playing in his head. He could feel the music flowing through him, his heart racing to the beat.
“Rock types aren’t affected by electricity, so let’s start with shippo o furu!”
Pichu looked confused at first, but went along with the order anyway. With a stern face that only a baby Pokémon could make while using Tail Whip, the pichu started wagging its rear at the wild rockruff, smacking its rear as a taunt.
The rockruff were visibly irritated, but it was clear that their guard had been lowered by the display. With their newfound anger, the rockruff made their move and charged at their prey.
“Pichu, dodge it!” ordered Davis, tossing his left hand outward.
Pichu did so, but with such vague direction it found itself moving in the wrong direction and getting tackled by the rockruff on the left.
“That’s cheating! Battles are supposed to be one vee-ess one!” he cried out. “Let’s see… what else would a Pikachu know? Oh, I know! Pichu, den kō sekka!”
Pichu looked at Davis, confused. Using this to their advantage, the rockruff got three more strikes in.
“No, Pichu!” Davis called out, fearing for the little mouse. “Why didn’t you use the attack?”
Pichu shook its head, made a pose as if to use Quick Attack, then crossed its arms and made an angry squeak, only to get tackled again in the downtime.
“You don’t know that move? You should’ve told me!”
Pichu protested with a flurry of adorably angry arm gestures and squeaks that only confused the boy. Once again, the rockruff took advantage of the kerfuffle by tackling the pichu. Three more hits left the electric mouse holding on by the skin of its teeth, panting as it struggled to get back up on all fours.
“What am I going to do? I can’t do it... I don’t know what’s effective!” the boy thought aloud, tears welling up in his eyes. “If I don’t do something, then Pichu will… That’s it!”
Davis pointed at the tree, then to the water bag.
“Pichu, we need to do what Satoshi did on the TV show! Climb up the tree, then jump down on the water bag!”
Pichu nodded, then made a mad dash for the tree nearest to the fountain, narrowly dodging the tackles and bites of the three rockruff. Pichu ran up the tree before jumping down to the fold-a-carrier below, and on impact the water bag launched a large blob of water, splashing all the wild Pokémon at once.
With renewed confidence and a smirk on his face, Davis pointed at the rockruff.
“Pichu, denkishockku!”
Pichu nodded, then curled up. With a great leap into the air, it slapped its cheeks before happily loosing a stream of electricity at the soaked rockruff – but as pichu landed, the electric attack proved too much for the inexperienced creature as it began shocking itself and the rockruff simultaneously.
“Pichu, no!” Davis cried as he ran toward his injured partner, but he couldn’t get any closer as the jolts of electricity shot in all directions.
Without further hesitation, Davis ripped his shoes off his feet, then used them as makeshift rubber gloves to grab his partner. Pichu’s attack continued to lash in all directions, forcing the rockruff to flee, but the damage was done. Pichu had been knocked out by its own power, and Davis’s shoes were now nothing more than molten rubber attached to singed cloth. A few more seconds, and he likely would have been electrocuted as well – or at the very least burnt.
Panicked, Davis looked between the water jug and his injured Pokémon partner. Deciding that both were equally important, he capped the jug and ran back to the camp with both in his hands.
“Mom! Dad!” he shouted. “Pichu is hurt!”
“What?” his Dad responded, coming to their aid.
“I got Mom’s water too.”
“What the hell Davis, that’s not important now. What happened here?”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” the boy sobbed. “I was just getting the water, and I wanted to share my bar with Pichu, but then some wild Pokémon attacked us, and they looked like rock types because of their collar, and I couldn’t use electricity, so I tried to wet them and use denkishokku to take them down, but then Pichu got hurt and I-”
“Slow down! I can barely tell what you’re saying. Den-key-shock-u? Li, do you know what he’s talking about?”
“That’s Japanese, not Cantonese, Wayne,” she responded, uninterested in the conversation.
“We’ve seriously got to get him watching some Unovan league matches. Not that Japanese crap,” grumbled his father. “Okay, well, did Pichu get hurt in the battle?”
“He got tackled a few times, and bites too. He really got hurt when he used his electric attack though.”
“That’s bad. Li, can you get us a potion from the car?”
Davis’s mother went to the trunk as his father knelt beside him.
“Davis, you have to remember that Pichu is just a baby. Baby Pokémon are only just now being learned about in Japan, and the professor from the Johto region was saying they’re even weaker than most basic Pokémon. He could get badly hurt in a fight if you’re not careful. What did they look like, those rock type Pokémmon? Were they like Beatle on two feet, or four feet like Flash?”
“Like Flash.”
“And what color were they?”
“Brown with rocks on their neck. I thought they wouldn’t be hurt by electricity.”
“Sounds like they were just some rockruff,” he said, sternly. “You’re lucky. Rockruff are basic Pokémon, but a mommy or daddy lycanroc could have been nearby. I’ll have Beatle and Flash watch the campsite tonight.”
“I’m sorry. Please fix him!” the boy said as he started crying.
“We will. Here, you want to learn how to use a potion?”
Davis nodded, wiping his still flowing tears. His father held his hand as they pulled the potion’s trigger together.
“You got to move it along Pichu’s whole body carefully. Pull the trigger slowly so it mists better, or else you’ll wind up with a stream and you’ll end up having to use an extra one to heal everything.”
The boy nodded, barely able to see through his tearful eyes.
“Okay, I think that’s good enough. Hey, Beatle, can you grab us an oran berry from the car?”
The smeargle nodded and dug out an oran berry from the cooler. As Pichu woke up, Beatle handed it the berry, and within minutes Pichu was fully healed.
“You’re okay!” cheered the boy as he hugged Pichu tightly.
The Pichu blushed as it scratched the back of its head.
“Hey, how about we fire up those marshmallows now? You guys have had quite the adventure today. Lee, can you start the fire?”
“Of course, Wayne. And how am I going to start that fire with MīuMīu or Yuè?”
Wayne pulled out a box of matches, then tossed them over to his wife.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said with an arbok’s glare.
********************
The stars blanketed the sky as Davis shared the last of his thoroughly burnt marshmallows with the Pichu that had saved him. The little Pokémon was comically stuffed with the puffy white snacks, its little stomach bulging from bloat – face beaming with just as much happiness as it was full. The two continued to play with each other into the sunset, Davis having lit the tip of a nearby branch on the ground and creating smoke rings in the air as he spun it around. Pichu danced alongside him, firing off small sparks in all directions. They continued into the night until they were so tired that they could barely sit upright in the fold-up chair by the fire – his cap hung off his chair as they relaxed in the darkness of the forest.
Wayne walked over to his son with a can of Budweiser in his hand and knelt by the chair.
“Hey, your mom and I were talking about what happened today.”
“Oh,” Davis mumbled, worried he was in more trouble.
“You know… it’s getting more and more dangerous to walk outside alone, and you’re not exactly a little toddler who sticks to our side like glue anymore. We know you’re just learning to do things yourself, but considering you’re just turning seven this year, you handled things rather well.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Davis said, relaxing a bit.
“Look, your mom and I had a talk. Your grandfather gave us this to give for your birthday, and while she’s not one-hundred percent on board with this, we agreed to let you have this early because we think it’s as good of a time as any.”
From his pocket, Davis’s father pulled out a red-topped wood-like ball with a metal latch about the size of an apricot. It wasn’t entirely unlike Wayne’s own metal capsule ball, but it wasn’t quite modern either. From a purely design perspective, it was possibly much older in conception. Nevertheless, Davis right away knew what was being offered and accepted it eagerly.
“Your Mom said that your grandfather made it himself. I think the only place you see Poké Balls like this anymore is in museums.”
“I’ll be super careful with it!” said Davis, cheerfully.
“You'd better be. Don’t make me regret this, we’re still not sure about giving this to you.”
Without wasting another second, Davis rushed over to Pichu with the old Poké Ball in hand.
“Hey, Pichu! Would you like to be my partner Pokémon?”
Pichu tilted its head and sniffed at the ball.
“If you say yes, then I can take you home with me. We can go to school together, and become stronger together, and one day we’ll be strong like Red together! We can be the very best, like no one ever was!”
Pichu smiled, and started dancing around happily, tiny sparks flying about as it got increasingly excited. Davis’s mother came over during the celebration, his baby sibling in her arms smiling as he watched it dance around.
“Remember: you have to unclip that Poké Ball before Pichu can get inside,” his mother noted.
“Yeah, last thing we need is a visit to the Pokémon Center because you bludgeoned the poor thing with that ball.”
“Got it!” he said. “Ready, Pichu?”
The mouse nodded.
“Latch!” his mom shouted.
“Sorry!” he hollered back. “Oh, wait!”
The boy rushed back to his chair and grabbed his cap. Upon his return, he readied his pose to throw the ball, taking after Satoshi in the cartoon.
“Latch!” his mother shouted once more.
“Sorry!” Davis said, finally unclipping the ball.
“Ready, Pichu? You’re mine!”
Pichu nodded firmly.
“Poké Ball…” he said as he twisted his cap backward, closed his eyes, and wound up his arm. “Go!”
The ball flew forward as he threw it with passion. Pichu jumped up in glee…! But the ball smacked into the ground about a good several feet away from the Pokémon…
The capsule laid there open while Davis’s eyes remained shut – much like his parents’ were in shame of his throw.
As if to spare him the embarrassment, Pichu ran over to the ball and tapped the capture mechanism inside. The pichu was quickly transformed into a stream of blue energy and then sucked into the ball before it shut around it.
Davis’s eyes now opened, he gripped his hands into tight fists as the ball jolted into the air with one… two… three bursts of steam before landing! Upon hitting the ground, the latch shut, and a small firecracker shot into the air signaling a successful capture.
“I did it!” Davis screamed into the air, rushing over to the Poké Ball on the ground. “Alright! Pichu, come on out!”
Davis pulled open the latch, then tossed the ball into the air. At its peak, the ball opened and released the creature inside before falling back into his hands. Pichu materialized in a flash of bright bluish light, and fell into its new trainer’s arms, beaming from cheek to cheek with a smile.
As the night ended, Davis’s parents poured water over their fire as he and his new partner snuggled up under the blankets in his little yellow tent.
It was the August of 1999, and Davis had just turned seven years old. His very own Pokémon legend was about to unfold. A world of dreams and adventures with Pokémon awaited him, and he was finally ready to go…