Chapter 1 of A Raichu’s Tale - “Insomnia”

            All the trouble and best times of my life probably started one seemingly normal rainy night in my old herd in the forest.  We were underneath a thick canopy of leaves, and the raindrops could be heard furiously hitting the leaves and sliding off, providing for a nice, dry place to sleep.  Sleep… what I wouldn’t do for sleep.  Today I had a bad case of insomnia, and I just couldn’t get comfortable.  I was jealous of everyone else.  I sighed at the cruel irony of the situation.  My brother and I never quite fit in with the rest of the herd, and my brother usually had a harder time than I.  But now he was asleep just like everyone else, and I was wide awake.

            My childhood had always been very lonely, with the exception of only two other people in my life.  In a herd comprised of Pichu, Pikachu, and a Raichu leader, my older brother was the only Ekans.  Him being an Ekans and I a Pikachu, I never completely understood how he could be my brother, but everyone else seemed to know as a fact that he was, and that was what my grandfather Sparky always told me.  Slick and I never fit in.  He was a serpent and I had always been bigger that other herd members my age.  In addition my fur was longer and more darkly colored and my tail was extra long.  As a result I was always easily noticed and scorned by the others.  We had no parents to care for us or to look up to for guidance, and most of our members of the herd tried to ignore that we ever existed; those that did acknowledge us constantly gave us dirty looks. 

            The only member of the herd who showed us kindness was our grandfather, the old alpha male.  He was a short-snouted, angry-eyed old Raichu who wore giant armbands he told us his father gave him.  He was a grumpy type whose face never seemed to soften, but he always looked out for my brother and I and made us feel like we were home.Unfortunately for us, he had passed away late last winter.  My brother and I missed him dearly; our family, the only thing we had in the world, had been reduced to two.

            I yawned.  Ah, finally, I think I was getting sleepy.  I closed my eyelids, waiting for sleep to embrace me.  Suddenly, I hear some strange noises outside.  Due to my large and rather sensitive ears, I could pick it out from all the pitter-pattering of the rain.  I ignored it.  What can be more important than falling asleep anyhow?  Probably just imagining things anyway…

I turned over on my belly in search of a more comfortable position, but it just wasn't working.  Insomnia is really annoying.  Because there was nothing else to do, I decided to seek out the source of the noise.  I crawled slowly to the edge of our sleeping quarters, careful not to bump into anyone else who was asleep.

There was a young human girl wandering around all by herself out in the rain.  As she clutched her arm, I noticed that she was wearing some gloves.  They were muddy and wet from the rain, just like the rest of her clothes.  Judging by her looks, I guess that she was about… oh, 8 or 9ish in human terms.

I had never seen her before in my life.  The only humans who had ever come this far into the woods were the professor himself and his assistants, and they usually had food to give us.  Then it hit me.  If I couldn't sleep, then maybe I could eat.  Since she was a human, she should have food, right?  Right.

            As I was moved forward, I quickly drew back.  I didn’t want to risk it, since I have heard that some humans could be really mean and cruel.  I withdrew into the canopy and crawled to my sleeping brother.

            I shook him. “”Hey, wake up.  Wake up,!""

Snorting, he replied, “”Hmm… yes?””  He blinked his bright green eyes and looked up sleepily at me.

“”There’s a girl outside.”” 

“”A girl?  So what, you’re a girl.  Now let me go back to sleep””, he said, coiling up again. 

“”No, no… this is a HUMAN girl!’’ 

“”You were probably sleeping.  Go back to sleep, and leave me in peace…”” 

“”I couldn’t get to sleep.  Now LOOK!”” I said, grabbing the Ekans’ head and dragging it to the corner of the canopy so he could see. 

“”Wow, you were right- There IS a girl!”” 

“”See?”” 

“”Does she have food?””

“I dunno yet.  I was going to- hey!”

            My brother slithered silently toward the girl, and poked her with his nose before I could say anything else.  She looked down at him in surprise.

            She smiled, and kneeled down next to him.  Still clutching her arm, she  outstretched her free hand.  After he inspected it, she patted him on the head.  You know, the Professor’s assistants were always wary when dealing with my brother, and they never patted him on the head.  The girl seemed happy that she had company, and my brother seemed to be enjoying the petting very much.  I let my guard down slightly and came out into the rain.  Slowly I approached my brother and the stranger.  When she noticed me, the girl’s smile grew even wider.  She gave out her hand, I sniffed it, and she patted my head gently.  I really enjoyed it when she rubbed behind my ear.

            “I’m lost,” said the girl.  Well, obviously, I thought.  “Do you two think you can help me?”

            Neither my brother nor I expected her to talk to us like we were a couple of humans.  We looked at each other guiltily.  We had no idea how to get out of this forest and to where all the humans were, since we always just followed the rest of the herd.

            “Pika…” I sighed, trying to think of a way to solve this situation.  There was always the option of rushing back into the canopy and forgetting this all.  If she tried to pursue me, she’d have to answer to a group of dangerous electric Pokémon, angry about being suddenly awoken!  But that wasn’t really an option, as the guilt of abandoning her would probably haunt me.

A noise from the brush interrupted my train of thought.  A large creature poked it head out of the brush and stared at us three.  Its bulging eyes were red around the edges, and I could see its fangs dripping with saliva.  It pulled the rest of its big toad-like body out into the rain, and I could see how big it was compared to me.  Its claws gripped the wet earth between its toes, and the huge flower on its back made it even bigger.

“”Mmm, dere ya are, mah lunch!  And I see ya brought dessert!”” He said, nodding at my brother and me.  The girl gasped and quickly stood up straight.  Grasping her left arm tighter, she took some steps back, as if about to run. 

With amazing speed, a green whip came out from behind the fat amphibian and wrapped around the girl’s leg, pulling her down.  Still staring at us, he made the distance between us shorter with every humongous step he made through the mud.

I gulped, and looked back at the canopy behind me.  If only I could…

“”Thinkin’ of duckin’ wid yer friends, eh?”” said the beast.  How did he know?  He took a large breath and roared loudly, literally shaking the leaves in the trees with his bellow.

The herd under the canopy instantly came alive, all scrambling to the opposite direction of the noise.  My brother and I instinctively tried to scuttle away as well, but I slipped on the mud in my haste.  My heart sank at the sudden realization that we had been left behind without hesitation. Suddenly, the monster was looming over me like a large tree.

“”See dat, nuthin’ but cowards! Dey won't even hear as I crunch yer bones!” he growled.  Vines emerged from underneath the leaves on his back, aiming towards me.  I rolled to my side, narrowly dodging the whips.

            Apparently, Slick dodged as well as next he was sinking his fangs into the whip that held the girl’s leg.  The toad grunted in pain, and sent whips to stop him.  Just as the girl shook herself free from the limp vine, Slick was also entangled. 

           “Chuu!”  I shut my eyes and electrocuted the Pokémon who was determined to make a meal out of us with a mild shock.  Unfortunately it hit my brother as well, and they both cried out in pain. 

            When the beast was temporarily stunned, the girl swiftly picked up my brother from the tangle of vines in one arm and started to run. 

“Come on!” she yelled after me, and I followed naturally.  We crashed into the bush madly, beating away leaves and dodging branches as fast as we could.  Behind me, I could hear the roar of the angry monster as he continued the chase.  He didn’t even bother to dodge anything, as his immense girth allowed him to simply trample and crush almost anything in his way.

Soon, we were panting and getting more and more lost in the dense forest, and our hunter was getting even closer and closer.  Suddenly, part of a tree started to crash before our eyes.  “DUCK!” the girl yelled, jumping backwards and knocking me into the brush as she fell to the ground.

The Pokémon chasing us finally caught up, wearing a smug grin on his ugly mug.  With his vines he promptly grasped the human around her arms and throat, choking her, as well as my brother.

““Heh, two down… where’s that yellow ra-aa?”” he grunted in surprised as I lunged for his eyes and scratched at them furiously with my small claws.  I even nipped part of his ear in my attack.  With a mighty shake of his head he threw me off straight into a tree.  ““This’ll teach you…””

In an instant, several green projectiles were flung inaccurately from the same place the now half-blind beast’s vines emerged.  I had barely any time to react as they sliced clean through the tree I was leaning on.  Unfortunately, one made contact with my face before swerving upwards and clipping some of my hair and embedding itself into the wood.

Clutching my left eye, I screamed in pain and fury.  I could feel some warm blood trickle from under my paw.  I barely noticed the cracking sound that came from behind me as I yelled and the beast chuckled in delight of my misery.  The chuckle stopped abruptly, and as I looked on with my other eye I could see that he was looking up at horror at something that was behind me.  The tree was falling!

Forgetting his meal, he flung my brother and the human to the side, and tried to flee.  Much to my dismay he managed to get out of the way just in time.  The girl made some coughing noises, and I heard my brother cry out to me.

Gasping in pain and trembling as I held my paw to my face, I paid little attention to everything else as my wound burned sharply on my face.  Large arms grasped me, and I felt someone lifting me up.  At a glace I could see it was the pale little girl, running with much effort with Slick on her shoulder.  Soon we came to an abrupt stop, the girl panting heavily from her sprint.

“”It’s the river!”” I heard my brother exclaim.  More bellows came from behind, and the girl swiveled around.  There was a loud boom as the earth suddenly rumbled from below, and the girl lost her balance.

            She shrieked in surprise, and we were sent falling until we landed in the water with a splash.  The water in the river was very cold, and the human lost her hold on me as we were swept down the current.  The shock from the water wrenched my hand away from my face, and washed me clean of blood.  I paddled frantically.  Even though I was a decent swimmer, the current was much too fast as I tried to keep my head above water. 

            “”Sister!”” a familiar voice called.  Turning as best I could, I saw my sibling wrapped around a boulder in the water.  He lunged for me and I reached for him, but we couldn’t connect.  I was swept underneath the water, and I scraped against many rocks on the river bottom. 

            Something grabbed my tail, and my first reaction was panic.  I was relieved when I saw, through much difficulty due to the rain and my near-blind eye, that it was the human girl clinging desperately to a rock.  She pulled me in and we held on together for our lives.

            Exhausted as we were, we probably would have been able to hold on longer had my brother not collided into us from upstream, where he must have lost his grip.  Sent tumbling down the flooding river, I gradually lost consciousness…

            When I awoke again, the rain had died down into a drizzle, and I was soaked.  Most of the evening light had gone, and there were already many stars in the double-mooned sky.  I looked around groggily, with my left eye shut, and saw that the human girl was lying stomach down next to me.  But… my older brother was nowhere to me seen.

            We were at a place downstream where the river was a lot calmer.  In the distance I could see this structure that I recognized as Professor Oak’s lab.  I had been brought there a few times before, along with my brother.  There was also a weird container with… um… yeah, wheels attached to it.  It was resting on some tracks that led inside a small cave.  Something inside it was glowing softly.

            Weakly I gathered myself up and looked around for him.  I saw him, baring his fangs angrily at a Pokémon I recognized- a Machop.  They were having an argument.

            “”Dude, it’s a human!  An intruder, even!  Dump her back in the river, and she’ll never bother us again… heh…”” said the Machop.  I instantly acquired a dislike for him.

            “”Bother who?!”” argued my brother.  “”She hasn’t done anything yet!””

            “”Ah, yet!  That’s why we should get rid of her, so she won’t have the chance to do anything!””

            I decided to get involved in the argument, which was probably a bad idea.  “”Why don’t we dump YOU in the river!”” I growled.  Strange, how I was defending the human… “”You seem to be a bigger bother to us with your big mouth and all!””

            “”What was that, shrimpy?”” said the Machop.  I underestimated his size, and he was taller than me by a few inches.  He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck.  “”Butt out, rat!”” and he flung me straight into a large boulder.

            SMACK!  I hit the boulder hard and slid down on the ground onto my back.  I tasted blood in my mouth, and spit out a small tooth.  After recovering from the shock, I sat up and rubbed by throbbing head and gingerly touched my sensitive snout.  Then a strange glow caught my eye.  The boulder I had hit had cracked open, and from the crack there emanated a strange green light.  I scratched at the boulder again, revealing that the boulder itself was one large glowing rock covered in old mud and dirt.  Fascinated, I touched its glowing green surface.  At that instant, my stomach felt funny, like there were tiny Butterfree fluttering about inside.  My head felt light, and I felt a little dizzy.  And… I began to change!  I looked down at my paws, which were getting bigger- much bigger.  The yellow fur on them changed quickly into a dark brown as I was surrounded with a bright light.  Everything on me was changing.  My teeth were getting bigger, my ears were morphing into a strange new shape, and my feet were growing longer! 

            I could feel the bones inside my body growing, shifting, and shrinking.  The bones in my tail cracked as they rearranged themselves, but it didn’t hurt.  I looked to see that my tail had become long and whip-like, with a large tuft of yellow hair at the end.  I felt my ears and the long fur at the top of my head grow, shift, and change.  My left eye also felt much better, although it still couldn’t see as well as my right one.

            When the light dimmed down, I walked from the boulder to the water.  Looking at my reflection, I recognized my new form immediately- I was a Raichu just like my grandfather Sparky!

            Knowing that in this form I had grown much larger and more powerful, I marched (albeit clumsily due to the new size of my feet) back to the Machop.  I tapped him on his shoulder, and as he turned around he was very surprised!  Due to my transformation, I looked down at him.  Now I was the one who was taller.

            I grabbed his arm forcefully and tossed him into the water.  In another swift movement I dipped my tail into the calm river and electrocuted him for the coup de grace.  My brother came up to me in amazement.

            “”Wow!  You evolved!  That rock is a giant thunderstone!”” he exclaimed excitedly, looking back and forth between me and the glowing boulder.

            “”Thunderstone?  Oh, right!””  The leaders and most revered of our herd always traveled as Pikachu to seek out a Thunderstone, and when they returned they had evolved into Raichu.

            We went over to the human girl to see if she was okay.  Together we turned her over onto her stomach.  When she didn’t react, my brother looked at me and I knew what to do.  I touched her hand with my paw and gave her a shock.  It was actually a little stronger than intended, but it did its job all the same.

            “AAAAAAAAAUGH!” she screamed in pain as she sat upright immediately.  Both my brother and I smiled, happy that she was okay.  “Where…?” she mumbled, holding her head.  She looked at us, returning our smile, and looked around until she saw the building in the distance. 

            A look of immense relief came over her face as she sighed.  She stood up slowly, and made her was slowly to the building.  Looking back, she called to us, “Thank you for all your help," she smiled. "I’m going home, so you should go home too."

            My brother and I looked at each other.  Home?  Where the heck was home?  The herd was chased off by that… that plant thing, and I had close to no idea where we were.  Professor Oak’s place was huge!  In a panic my brother and I rushed to the girl’s side. 

            She noticed and said, “Oh!  You want to come along?”  We nodded, and she smiled.  She smiles a lot…

            When we reached the house, Slick and I stayed back a little distance as the girl approached.  She walked up the steps, and walked on the… the… um… the patio!  She walked on the patio and knocked on a doorway that had this little shiny and transparent barrier on it.  Leaning over from where I was standing, I could see that there were two men in there.

            One of them I recognized as Professor Oak, the old man who gave us food regularly- unless he got one of his assistants to do it for him.  The other one was some skinny human I didn’t recognize, with small, strange-looking dimples on his face. He was a little taller than the old professor, and his hair was jet black, and spikey, and on his shoulder rested a Pikachu.  His eyes shone with the same color brown as the girl’s and his face was just as pale.

            “Samantha!  My little girl…” he said, and reached out for her.  The girl- er, Samantha and the man embraced.  “Where were you?!” he asked Samantha.

Samantha answered, “I… I…” she looked out at my brother and me.  We had slowly crept up the steps and were looking inside from the doorway.  “It’s a long story, Papa…”

“Well, let’s get you all cleaned up… you’re bleeding!” Samantha’s father said urgently, noticing the wound on her arm.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore, Papa,” answered Samantha.  “It’s okay.”  Samantha and her father went deeper into the house, the Pikachu following.

Professor Oak turned to us and beckoned, “Come inside.”  So we did.

            Inside, the air was cool.  All around us were a bunch of gizmos and strange gadgets of this and that, and I could see in another room there was book after book, almost un-ending.  Slick slithered over to one of the machines, and pressed a button.

            The machine made a bunch of loud, clunky sounds and emitted a large bubble that floated and popped on my brothers’s head.  He didn’t look too happy about the soapy water that soaked him.  Professor Oak turned off the machine and reprimanded us, telling us not to touch anything.  We then followed Professor Oak into a large, brightly lit room with a ceiling tall enough for an Onix to stand upright in it.  In it were two women, one fairly old with a few wrinkles and some pale brown and gray hairs tied in a ponytail, and another who had dark brown hair in a braid.  The two women looked up at the professor.

            “I heard someone, is Samantha here?” interpreted the woman with the braid.  At the Professor’s nod, she breathed a huge sigh of relief.  She then rushed out of the room to where the professor told her Samantha and her father was.

            “Thank goodness,” said the older woman.

            My brother and I didn't say anything.  When could we go home?  When would we be fed?  I was terribly hungry…  Professor Oak left for something, and the Pikachu from before came in.  Even though I was evolved, I could see that the older Pokémon was a lot stronger and much more experienced than I was.

            The professor came back shortly with two apples, and have Slick and I one each.  We ate them voraciously as he examined us for injuries or the like.  When he was done, he patted me on the head and said, “So, it seems that you’ve evolved.  Got into my thunderstone mines, eh? Heh... oh well." I was left to puzzle with what he meant.  Did he plan to evolve me?  Did he know that my herd was planning to have an evolving ceremony (that I never heard about)?  Either way, it didn’t really matter. 

            After some time, Samantha’s father and the woman, who I presumed to be Samantha’s mother, entered the room.  As they sat on the couch, the Pikachu rushed to sit on Samantha’s father’s lap.

            “Samantha is fast asleep now,” said Samantha’s mother.  “How did this happen, anyway?  I thought you were watching over her!”

            “I was!” answered both the professor and Samantha’s father.  They looked at each other, and the professor spoke. “We were watching her, and all of a sudden, she was gone!  You know how Samantha is.  She’s always so eager to go out and explore all on her own, rushing out of our view as soon as we turn our backs... especially if she sees a Pokémon.”

            “You’re right… but she needs to be watched over more carefully if she’s going to come and see the Pokémon in the preserve again.”

            Slick and I were left with nothing to do but listen to the conversation, which made us groggy.  It had been a very long day and we were both very tired.  We lied down on the soft carpet.

            After a pause, Professor Oak started talking again.  “Well… you know, Samantha is going to be 10 soon…”

            Samantha’s parents looked like they have had this conversation before, and held hands. “Yes, you’re right,” said Samantha’s father.  “She’s always talking about becoming a Pokémon trainer.”

            “She’ll make a great trainer.  She’s a survivor,” nodded Professor Oak.

            “Just like her father,” smiled the old woman, who had stayed quiet.

            "But it's been dangerous these days," said Samantha's mother.  "The number of new trainers going out this year is at an all-time low..."

My brother and I stayed at the lab that night, and many nights after that.  Nights and days ran into weeks, and ran into months, and I got a bit used to human life.  I learned so many things, like about how humans eat, what they eat, about new objects, and TV.  Ah… TV… it has taught me so much.  The wound that I got over my left eye from the Pokémon that dreadful day eventually healed, and now there was a permanent scar over my left eye, which had since turned red from some weird infection.  I also found I didn't really miss the herd much at all.

“Good morning,” greeted the professor one early morning.  “Today is a very special day.”

Professor Oak gave us our usual meal of some dry stuff called PokéChow and took us to a room with many gadgets.  There was a large window that looked over the town that he lived in, and it was a magnificent view since he lived on the top of a hill.  In the center of the room there was a sort of display case, but there didn’t seem to be anything important about it so I kept my eyes on the professor.  We were wise enough now to know that you weren’t to go around touching things in the old professor’s house.  I climbed up on a chair with Slick to get a better view of things.

The professor opened a drawer and took out a cardboard box.  Inside the box were many different shapes and sizes and lengths of ribbon. There were sparkling silver, cerulean blue, and many, many colors.  Then, he took out another box that was very smooth and shined like silver.  It was small, and looked like it contained something important.

“Good luck, you two,” he said, opening the box.  Inside there were two spheres called Pokéballs, for containing Pokémon like my brother and me.  He took out one that had a purple leaf on it, and pushed the button that was on it.  In a flash of red light, my brother was sucked instantly inside.

“Now it’s your turn.” He said, turning to me.  He pushed the button on the other Pokéball, which had a yellow lightning bolt engraved onto it. I saw myself glow in a bright red light just like my brother did, and before I knew it I was inside.  I had shrunk to the size just perfect for it!  The spherical structure was padded on the bottom, and smooth on the top.  I could hear most of what was going on around me.  I saw on TV once that explained how the Pokéballs worked.  I don’t remember most of it, but I do remember that if someone or something started spinning around my Pokéball, the room itself wouldn’t spin.  Right after I was inside my Pokéball, I think I was put inside the box.

It was a fairly long wait until I was let out of the Pokéball again.  When I was let out, I was in a completely different place than I was before.  When I looked around, I was outside on a patio with two boys I’ve never seen before, Samantha’s parents, that old woman from a long time ago who I learned was Samantha’s grandmother, and Professor Oak.  Staring right at me was Samantha, who was overjoyed to see me, and hugged me tightly immediately.

One of the boys was very skinny.  He wore some shorts that reached his knees, a white t-shirt that looked too big for him, and some dirty white sneakers.  He had dirty blonde hair that was tied back into a ponytail, had very deep blue eyes, and was very pale.  The other boy had black eyes and shoulder-length black hair with artificial red streaks.  He was wearing dark blue pants and a long-sleeved red shirt that had two red Pokéball symbols on either one of its black sleeves.  On his feet he wore a pair of some very nice black boots.   

            “Whoa, a Raichu…” exclaimed the black-haired boy.  “Excellent.”

            Slick appeared beside me in a flash of white light.  Samantha also gathered him in a tight hug.  Slick and I were both very puzzled, but everyone else seemed to know what was going on.  Then, it hit us both at the same time.  We… we were… were we…?

            “They’re both yours.” Professor Oak said simply.