Chapter 56.1- Oak

I ran through the forest, not even bothering to look back, the thought of what had just happened moving through my head. Hashirama had just totally and completely ignored me. He acted as if I wasn't even talking, as if I wasn't ordering him to stop. For the second time ever, one of my Pokemon had ignored my orders in their entirety. I could understand why it happened, or at least I thought I could. However, there was no way for it to make sense in some parts of me. My head knew, but my heart refused to accept the truth.

It was all my fault. I knew that making Hashirama use so much ghost-type energy while he was badly wounded and in pain was a bad idea. I knew there was no good way for it to end. I knew it logically, but I just wanted to be free of Agatha so badly that I said, "fuck the consequences." Now I have to accept that the dildo of consequences rarely arrives lubed, and I'm going to have to take a few backshots until this entire mess clears up, as much as it can clear up, at least.

I wasn't sure if I could forgive what happened, especially because of where it happened. The entire region just got front-row seats to me losing control of one of my Pokemon, and that Pokemon went on to brutally maim a competitor. If there weren't consequences for this, I'd be extremely lucky. That's goodbye to ever becoming champion. I could already see the headlines if I ever made the mistake of signifying my intention: "Boy Who Cannot Control Pokemon Seeks To Control Entire Region." Or something along those lines would be smeared across every headline on every news website or forum or even newspaper. It was all over, and it was my fault, not just mine, but mostly mine. I didn't train Hashirama enough to truly accept his ghost type, and I definitely didn't do any training with him to teach him how to overcome the malice that marked being a member of that particular typing. Why? I thought it was a waste of time. Hashirama's appeal always lay in his grass typing. There's a reason for the name I gave him. There's a reason he went by the name of a ninja famed for creating whole forests and not by the name of anything ghost-related. To me, he had always been a grass type first and foremost, and that was coming to bite me back in the arse right now. There was no easy way to say it, but this could not be redeemed.

Of course, as bad as things were, they just had to go even more wrong. I heard maniacal cackling from behind me, a familiar maniacal cackling. The look on my face must have been quite a sight as I turned and saw Agatha jumping right at me. I barely rolled out of the way of her dive before she slammed into the ground behind me. When she stood again, with barely a second's delay, Hashirama reached out for her with one of his branches. She dodged out of the way and ran straight for him. I could only watch, gobsmacked, as the old woman got to work.

It wasn't a fight. It was a beating. Agatha was relentless and I wasn't even able to understand how her movements were possible without her dislocating or snapping something. As old as she looked, she seemed to be keeping up with injured Hashirama with ease, and even outmanoeuvring him. The gap between humans and Pokemon should make something like this just plain impossible. Thankfully, it seems the sudden burst of power and energy was leaving as quickly as it came. The candle that burned twice as hot was burning twice as fast, it seemed. She began to flag. To slow down. Every punch just had a bit less power, every dodge was just a bit less crisp. We could smell the blood in the water, and as angry as I was with him and myself, Hashirama and I were of one mind in this matter. We melded like two halves of a whole as I lent him all the energy I could spare, and he put it to good use, preparing to put this woman down for good. Killing her might not be the best look, but humans who engaged Pokemon directly were waving their protection from being attacked by such Pokemon. It was the law of the land. We moved in, ready to end her.

Of course, right when we thought we had her, she pulls out a massive trump card. I hadn't been watching for the poison, and that was my undoing. Her mouth opened suddenly as Hashi weaved in for a final hit to end the battle. She breathed out a cloud of pure black gas. Poison. I saw it rip through Hashirama, and I saw her take a hold of him. Now, when she spoke, there was something else there. It wasn't just Agatha I could hear there.

"Good attempt at resistance, Donnell Oak. But now, you are mine," she (they?) said as they punched straight through Hashirama's body, pumping him with poison, and killing him instantly. I saw it happen just as clearly as I felt it. In his last moments, Hashirama had pushed me out of his head so I didn't have to deal with that particular trauma. Even without that, I still felt it as he faded from this world. There was an age-old question in certain circles. They asked, "Can Ghosts die?" The answer, I was quickly finding out, was yes. It was a resounding yes. Hashirama was dead and gone. His aura, the thing that made him him, was just seeping right into the nature around us. Some of it flowed into me, but I left wondering about that for the future. All the present had for me was a dead family member, and I had to deal with that.

A/N: Is this a good place to end this installment? Maybe. Maybe it is. I should be able to get the next part out by tomorrow.