"Great job, Pikachu, we won!!" Ash shouted, his voice filled with excitement as Raichu lay motionless for nearly ten full seconds.
"Pika…chu…" Pikachu panted heavily, sparks flickering weakly from his cheeks. Using so many powerful moves, especially techniques beyond his usual level, had drained him badly.
But the exhaustion didn't matter. To him, the joy of defeating an opponent who had mocked and belittled them was worth everything.
With one last burst of energy, Pikachu dashed forward, leapt straight into Ash's arms, and the two burst into laughter together.
"Pika pika!"
"Ha ha, we did it!" Ash hugged him tightly.
From the sidelines, Ralts wriggled out of Misty's arms, floated across the field, and happily joined in the celebration, twirling in the air beside Ash and Pikachu.
Lt. Surge stood frozen for a moment, staring at his fallen Raichu. His eyes flickered with disbelief, frustration… and then something heavier.
He hadn't expected to lose today. Not like this. Not so completely.
Through the entire battle, Raichu had failed to land even a single hit. They had been suppressed from start to finish. And while Raichu had been strong, the bond between Ash and Pikachu was stronger, seamless, flawless, every move timed perfectly.
If Surge hadn't known Ash was a rookie who had only begun his journey a month ago, he might have believed this Trainer and his Pikachu had been partners for ten years or more.
Level, evolution, and experience had all been on his side. Yet he'd been crushed. Why?
His mind replayed the battle: Pikachu's impossible speed from the start. That shocking Surf. The unlucky paralysis that slowed Raichu at the worst possible time. One misstep had snowballed into another until everything collapsed.
'Was this payback? Retribution for looking down on so many challengers?'
No, when it came down to it, the truth was simple.
Strength.
Ash's Pikachu had simply been stronger than his Raichu. Tricks or not, luck or not, none of it mattered if the power gap was real.
"You won." Surge's voice was low, but steady. He drew in a deep breath and looked Ash in the eye. "I take back what I said before. I was wrong to insult you and your partner. I apologize."
He recalled Raichu, then strode across the battlefield. To everyone's shock, the towering Gym Leader bowed his head deeply to Ash.
The act left Ash stunned. He had wanted to boast, to rub the victory in a little. But faced with this honest apology, his pride melted. Surge might have been brash and arrogant, but he knew how to admit mistakes.
Ash smiled faintly. 'I don't need to gloat. I already won. That's enough.'
Besides, this battle had given him far more than a badge. Pikachu's aura now burned brighter than ever, he had broken through to Elite Level. Even without the special "Partner Form," Pikachu was now a genuine Elite Pokémon in his own right.
Ash's thoughts echoed something Professor Oak had once told him: 'The harder the battle, the greater the growth.'
Of course, looking back, the fight might have looked easy… well, relatively easy, ahem. The truth was, Lt. Surge's Raichu had been poorly raised.
"Uncle Surge," Ash said suddenly, tilting his head. "When you trained Raichu, you focused only on raising his level, right? You didn't work on building his stats or refining his abilities."
Lt. Surge blinked, caught off guard. He hesitated, then gave a small nod. "That's right. I always believed Trainer's commands and battle instincts would carry the rest. With higher levels and sharper orders, I thought victory would always be mine… That's what I believed until today."
After battling Ash, his worldview was shaken to its core.
A rookie Trainer, with less than a month of experience, had suppressed him completely.
An unevolved Pokémon, with a lower level and form, had beaten his Raichu head-on.
Everything he thought he knew about strength crumbled in this single match.
Ash patted Pikachu's head and spoke calmly, almost like repeating a lesson drilled into him. "Uncle Surge, your Raichu's problem isn't its level, it's its ability values. Pikachu could fight evenly because even though his level is lower, his stats aren't weak."
He smiled slightly, recalling Champion Ash's words from the "group" that guided him. "Build a solid foundation at every stage. Maximize a Pokémon's abilities before letting it evolve or level up. That's how you raise true strength. If you only grind levels and ignore the basics, even a Champion-level Pokémon might lose to an Elite Four member head-on."
Surge's expression darkened as the words hit home.
He had spent years hammering Raichu up in level but hadn't polished the Pokémon itself. Training ability values, endurance, speed, strength, was far harder than simply raising levels. It took patience, creativity, and discipline. But the reward… was undeniable.
And the boy in front of him was living proof.
An Advanced-class Pikachu had defeated his Professional-class Raichu. Not because of form or level, but because its foundation was solid.
"I see…" Surge muttered, eyes narrowing in thought. "I always believed level and command were everything. But you… you just proved me wrong." He exhaled heavily, then looked Ash dead in the eye. "Usually, it's the Gym Leader teaching the challenger. Today, the opposite happened. Who exactly are you?"
Ash grinned, flashing his white teeth. "Just a Trainer from Pallet Town."
Surge barked a laugh. "Hah! You've really got me there…"
But Ash's smile soon faded. His expression hardened, and his voice carried a sharp edge. "One more thing, Uncle Surge. About those rookie Trainers you've beaten before."
Surge blinked.
"I don't know why you treated them so harshly," Ash continued, "but crushing them like that, it's wrong. You're a Gym Leader. You're supposed to be a role model, a guide. What you did wasn't guidance. It was ending their journeys before they even began."
Ash stepped aside, gesturing toward Misty and Brock.
"These two are Gym Leaders too. I've learned so much from them, about battling, about caring for Pokémon, and about being a Trainer. They're what true Gym Leaders look like."
Surge's gaze flicked to Misty and Brock. Misty's strongest Pokémon was nowhere near Raichu's level. Brock wasn't much stronger. But the sincerity in their eyes told him all he needed to know. They were leaders because they lifted others up, not because they crushed them down.
Ash's voice softened, but it struck even deeper. "I was lucky. Lucky I met them. Lucky Misty joined me on my very first day, back in Pallet Town. If I'd met someone like you back then… maybe I'd never have made it this far."
Silence fell.
For the first time in years, Surge reflected not just on his training, but on himself. He remembered his days as a soldier, serious, strict, but never cruel. Back then, he hadn't wanted to hurt anyone.
But after years of battling weak challengers with Pidgey, Rattata, and the like, his pride had twisted. He felt insulted by their weakness, convinced they were mocking him. That resentment had dug in deep.
And so, bit by bit, he became harsher, crueler, until the man before Ash now was unrecognizable from the one who had first become a Gym Leader.
His idea had been simple: if he scared off weak challengers and built a fearsome reputation, then those kinds of challengers would stop coming. He wouldn't have to endure the boredom, or the perceived insult, of battling Trainers who brought Raticate and Pidgey.
But that approach had only ended up hurting both the challengers' Pokémon and their spirits. For many rookies, this was their very first Gym match.
To be crushed mercilessly and told, "Come back in two years," was a brutal blow to a new Trainer's confidence.
If Lt. Surge weren't a Gym Leader, he could be judged merely on morals. But he was a Gym Leader.
This was a matter of professional ethics.
Ash's words slammed home a simple truth: this was no longer a battlefield, and the Trainers who came to challenge him were not enemies from wartime. A Gym Leader's duty wasn't to annihilate an opponent and end their career; it was to guide them, teach them, correct their mistakes. That was what it meant to be a qualified Gym Leader.
Thinking of this, Lt. Surge bowed once more, deeply and sincerely.
"Thank you, Ash. If not for you… I don't know how long I would've kept being wrong."
From "kid," to "young man," to "Ash", that shift in how he addressed him, all in less than half an hour, spoke volumes about how the boy's standing had changed in Surge's eyes.
"This is proof you've defeated me, the Thunder Badge. Please, take it." Surge produced the Vermilion City Gym's badge. Ash accepted it without hesitation.
"I got the Thunder Badge!"
"Pikachu!"
"Ralts—ralts~~!"
Ash struck his trademark victory pose. After admiring the Thunder Badge for a long moment, he pinned it to his jacket. That made three badges in a little over a month.
Five more badges in the remaining five months? That didn't seem like a problem at all.
Watching Ash tuck the badge away, Surge couldn't hold back the questions any longer. "Ash, how exactly did you train this Pikachu? Even if Raichu's stats weren't optimized, I shouldn't lose ground in a straight clash with an Elite-level Pokémon, right?
"And that Soaring Surf, and that strange high-speed Electric move, can the Pikachu line even learn those?"
These questions had been piling up from the very start, and only now could he finally ask.
Ordinarily, this sort of thing counted as a Trainer's secrets. How you train a Pokémon, how you make them special, that's each Trainer's unique recipe. You don't just hand that over.
But Surge was truly baffled. He'd raised Pikachu and Raichu himself. How could he not know what moves Pikachu could learn or what their base strengths should be?
Even if his own Raichu's stats were undertrained, Pikachu was innately weaker than Raichu by species. Even well-bred, with a lower level, Pikachu should still have been at a disadvantage.
In theory, Raichu should have won out.
And beyond that, there were those two incomprehensible moves, the sheer breadth of Pikachu's movepool, and that sudden surge in level at the start… Everything felt off. Was this really a Pikachu? Or was some Legendary wearing a Pikachu costume?
Ash paused, then shook his head. "Sorry, Uncle Surge. That's a secret between me and Pikachu. I can only say this: my Pikachu is special. Whether it's Electric Acceleration or Soaring Surf, they're moves only he can use. Other Pikachu can't learn them."
"As for the 'level-up'… you must've seen it wrong. What level is my Pikachu now?"
Surge glanced down at the Pikachu by Ash's feet. His expression froze. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, carefully.
W-what…? Wasn't he Advanced just now? How is he Elite now?
From an Ordinary Intermediate start to Elite Level now, in just over a month. Pikachu's growth could only be called miraculous.
Even after checking three separate times, Lt. Surge still couldn't believe it. Pikachu was undeniably Elite now. All he could do was mutter to himself that he must've misjudged before.
After a few more pleasantries, Ash waved goodbye.
Before he left, Surge asked one last question. "Why do you keep calling me Uncle Surge?"
Ash blinked. "It just felt natural, so I said it."
The truth was, the name had slipped out from the way "Tactician Ash" in the group chat addressed him. But explaining that would only make things messier.
Once outside, Misty glanced at him curiously on the walk to the Pokémon Center. "Ash, what's up with Pikachu's move, Soaring Surf? Isn't that just Surf? Did you rename it yourself?"
Ash looked down at Pikachu nestled in his arms and smiled. "It's not just regular Surf. Pikachu fuses electricity into the water, it can paralyze opponents. That's why I gave it a new name."
"Originally, I wanted to call it Electric Surf. Pretty descriptive, right? But Pikachu didn't like it, said it was too plain. So we went with Soaring Surf instead. As for how Pikachu learned it…" Ash shrugged. "He just figured it out on his own. I guess Team Rocket chasing him all the time isn't without reason."
He finished with a helpless smile.
Misty pursed her lips, hiding a smirk. 'Then, So Pikachu named it himself, huh? No wonder it sounds cooler than Ash's idea.' Her steps grew a little lighter, especially as she recalled Ash instinctively shielding her earlier.
At the Pokémon Center, Ash immediately phoned his mom, Delia, proudly sharing the good news. Then he called Professor Oak.
"Congratulations, Ash!" Oak said warmly. "Three badges already. You're keeping pace with Gary."
"Gary?" Ash scratched his cheek. It had been so long since he'd thought about him that the name almost slipped his mind. "How many badges has he got now?"
"He's earned three as well. He headed to Celadon first, and now his next stop is Vermilion. He should arrive in the next two days."
Ash clicked his tongue. He'd been so focused on training, he'd practically forgotten about his so-called rival.
Then Oak's tone shifted. "Oh, by the way, Professor Cerise's laboratory officially opened today. If you have time, stop by and support him."
Ash froze for a second. The name rang familiar.
Professor Cerise, one of Oak's own students. A young and promising researcher who often visited Pallet Town to collaborate. Ash remembered him… and remembered the girl who always came along with him.
Cerise's daughter.
Ash smiled faintly at the memory. After a few visits, he and that girl had become good friends.
...
Stones Plzz
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