PHOTOGRAPH BY AF ARCHIVE / ALAMY

The ceremony had been lavish and well attended. But still, as the evening wound down, Pikachu, a wistful mix of booze and sentiment, couldn't quite believe that it had already been twenty years.

"Charmander?" Charmander said, slinging an arm over Pikachu's shoulder, grinning sidelong at his inebriated friend. "Char, Char!"

Pikachu laughed—clearly he wasn't the only one who'd been drinking. They walked together across a lawn littered with beer cans, amusing themselves by taking turns using Charmander's tail to ignite stray paper plates.

"Pi_ka_chu," Pikachu said. It wasn't far from the truth; after all, he didn't mean to appear glum, and was embarrassed to have been caught sulking. Maybe it was his buzz, which was turning, or maybe it was that tragic spirit of evanescence that looms at the periphery of every commemorative event.

"Pikachu," he said, apologetically.

Charmander looked at him, as if to say "Charmander," but thought better of it. Instead he said "Charmander," and slapped his friend on the back. Charmander's emotional intelligence had always been one of the things Pikachu appreciated most about him.

They came upon a lantern-lit area where tables had been cleared away to make space for a dance floor. Squirtle was performing a hilarious jig, with one hand clamped on his head, steadying his yarmulke. The crowd whooped and hollered as Pikachu approached.

He imagined that instead of being at the Kanto party-reservation lawn, they were once more in the clearing of some mysterious wood. The lanterns morphed before his eyes into sublime enchantments, the many raised tents became the dark shapes of faerie trees, and the sounds of the celebration were replaced by the nefarious chatter of unseen sprites. Off they would head again, on one of their brilliant, youthful adventures. Then Charmander fell over a chair, rousing Pikachu. Squirtle began doing the moonwalk.

Noctowls hooted from distant branches as the moon rose. Bulbasaur stood at one of the host tables and hoisted his glass into the air.

Clink, clink, clink.

It was time for speeches. The crowd huddled excitedly around the dinosaur, who cleared his throat and began reading from a card: "Bulbasaur," Bulbasaur commenced. "Bulbasaur, Bulbasaur."

The audience laughed politely, and Pikachu slipped away. Twenty years, twenty years—had it really been so long? It seemed like only yesterday that they had all set out together, in search of glory and seven hundred other Pokémon. He kicked a can, thunder­-shocking it instantly. Was this it? Had middle age finally caught up to them? Were their rough­neck-battling days irretrievably behind them?

"Pikachu!" he heard a host of voices cry, echoing through the crisp night air. "Pikachu!" He ignored them and walked on, in search of the sake tent. Above him, the constellations sprawled—tapestries of radiant, cosmic wanderlust. He identified Tauros, charging headlong into Flaaffy; he saw Ursaring, the belligerent, using Fury Swipes attack; he observed legendary Rayquaza, the mega­-evolved, twisting into a nebula. Then, to his surprise, the universe revealed his own ancestry: the Pikachu, surfing contentedly at a Sandals resort. He hung his head.

Suddenly, projected over a megaphone, he heard "Prepare for trouble. . . . Make it double." The ground shook. Pikachu turned to see the careening Meowth dirigible of Team Rocket, nose-diving into the fairgrounds. He gasped, "Pikachu."

Team Rocket? Trying to catch them here?!

He sprinted toward the ensuing skirmish, where his drunken Pokémon friends fell one by one at the hands of Jessie and James, who used a combination of poison-powder spray attacks and a giant vacuum cleaner to suction up all the Pokémon into Pokéballs. He saw Charmander collapse; Squirtle's yarmulke was blasted off. Bulbasaur, usually the hardiest of them all, threw a few wobbling Razor­ Leafs before being lifted into the air, unconscious.

"There he is! There's Pikachu!" Jessie cried from amid the wreckage, gesticulating at the thunder­ mouse, who zipped this way and that, a dazzling blur.

"Catch him, Jessie, catch him!" James shrieked, swinging the vacuum tube wildly. But it was too late—Pikachu streaked behind them, and released a super-effective thunder shock. The zeppelin exploded, and the members of Team Rocket were sent careening toward the moon.

As the smoke cleared, the Pokémon awoke from their poison-induced slumber.

"Squirtle?" Squirtle said.

"Charmander," Charmander explained.

"Bulbasaur," said somebody.

Pikachu flopped onto his belly, exhausted, but smiling from pouch to pouch. He started to laugh, then found that he couldn't stop.

"Metapod?" Metapod, who was confused, inquired.

"Chu chu chu!" Pikachu squeaked. "Pika pi!" He rolled onto his back, wiggling his little feet.

The other Pokémon exchanged worried glances. Then Charmander turned to his chubby companion and giggled, shooting a volley of flames into the air. "Charmander!" he cried, and, just like that, they were all laughing.

Pikachu gazed up at the stars. He again saw Tauros and Flaaffy, the mighty Ursaring, and the coiled Rayquaza. But, to his relief, he no longer saw himself, or any trace of his companions, in the brittle night sky. They were not yet relegated to the annals of memory, resigned to past glories. They were here with him, on this magnificent Earth, chugging super potions. As he looked around at his friends, Metapod evolved into Butterfree, and Pikachu felt quite sure that these next twenty years were going to be the best of their lives.