The duo made their way through the long, twisty tunnel, stopping every so often to choose between two forks in the path. A couple of times, Ash ended up running off down some other path in order to investigate a sound that he had heard. After dragging him back, Pikachu would attempt to find a way back to the path she had been traveling before, only to realize that she was in a completely unknown part of the tunnel. She was beginning to realize why Misty shouted at Ash so much.
"Hey!" Ash chirped, his ears perking up. "Did you hear that, Pikachu?" Before she had a chance to answer, the boy bounded off, lighting up the path with excited sparks of electricity.
"Ash!" Pikachu shouted. "Get back here! You're going to get lost and then we'll never get out of here! You'll get hungry and then you'll be sorry!" However, her trainer was already too far away to answer. Pikachu sighed and began to follow the path of glowing lights to her excitable trainer.
"Pikachu!" his voice suddenly called out. "I've found a way out! And there's someone here!" Pikachu dashed the rest of the way to her trainer. Knowing him, the "someone" could turn out to be an extremely vicious Aerodactyl that would eat him as soon as look at him. She shot forward, full speed, until a sudden light assaulted her eyes. She tripped over her own feet, rolled forwards like a tiny yellow tire, and did not stop until she slammed into something hard and vaguely soft.
Groaning and rolling over onto her back, Pikachu cursed her luck. So far, she had failed to catch a strange Pokémon for Ash, fallen into a deep, dark tunnel, watched helplessly as her trainer was transformed into a Pikachu for no particular reason, and now she had just ran straight into a rock at full speed!
… a small, furry, yellow rock.
"Ash!" Pikachu squealed in terror, forgetting about her own pain. "Oh no, oh no, oh no!" Her trainer lay with his back up against a tree some ten feet away, with a huge patch of exposed dirt to show that he had skidded all the way there. He was upside-down, and his feet and tail were hanging limply over his head. As Pikachu ran over to his side, he groaned and muttered something about being the greatest Pokémon Master in the whole entire world.
Pikachu sighed and gently pulled the boy into a normal, sitting position. Well, normal for a Pikachu. Ash's eyes flickered, and for a moment, Pikachu thought that he was going to say something. Then he fell over onto the grass and began to snore.
Shaking her head, Pikachu began to examine her surroundings more closely. They were in some sort of forest, but it was different from the forest where the rest of the group was currently at. There was a smell in the air – something like flowers. After a few moments, Pikachu realized that the air smelled cleaner here. She walked over to a nearby flower curiously and sniffed it. It smelled nicer than the flowers she was used to. What sort of place was this? Maybe this place wasn't as polluted as the heavily populated area at the other end of that long, confusing tunnel.
That was to say… maybe this wasn't even the same world as the one they had come from. Pikachu shuddered at the thought. She had to get Ash back to normal so he could achieve his dream!
In his sleep, the boy drooled. His legs twitched as though he were attempting to chase something – probably a new Pokémon, Pikachu decided.
Maybe it was a good thing the little runt was going to have a short break from training.
"Waaa!"
Pikachu jumped as a sudden shouted pierced through the forest. Moments later, a blue streak sped into the clearing. "Hey!" Pikachu shouted. "What are you?"
The blur stopped and Pikachu recognized it as the blue Pokémon that had led them down the tunnel! "Oh!" he said in surprise. "Where'd you come from?" Before Pikachu could answer, the blue Pokémon looked down at his wrist, where something silver and bulky hung. "I'm late!" the Pokémon shouted. "I can't miss this!"
"What's going on?" a third voice suddenly chimed in, albeit groggily. Pikachu happily swung her head around to see her beloved trainer pulling himself to his feet and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. As soon as he caught sight of the newcomer, Ash's eyes widened angrily. "Hey! It's that Pokémon that led us here!" Before the tiny blue Pokémon had a chance to get a word in, Ash had rushed him, tackled him to the ground, and glared at him, nose-to-nose.
"Waaa!" the Pokémon shouted again. "Please don't hurt me! I'm just an innocent Riolu! I have to get back to the city before nightfall so I can deliver something!"
"Ash!" Pikachu snapped, shocked. "Stop pinning him down like that!" Ash blinked, and began to blush as he realized what he was doing to the poor Riolu. He rolled off, gave a quiet little "sorry!" under his breath, and promptly hid behind Pikachu.
Riolu gasped, still terrified of the 'Pikachu' that had pinned him down. He looked at Pikachu with fearful red eyes. When he realized that he wasn't going to be attacked, he started to speak again. "I was up in the other place, gathering flowers for Master Grovyle when I was attacked by one of the scary humans! I managed to escape, but… hey!" Riolu stumbled back a few feet. "You're the one who was attacking me! You were one of the scary human's Pokémon servants!" Tears began to well up in Riolu's eyes as he realized that he wouldn't be able to escape from the duo.
"We won't attack you!" Ash cut in. "I promise! I had never seen something like you before!" Pikachu began to realize where Ash was going with this and started to frantically wave her paws in an attempt to call him off. However, her trainer was far too focused on Riolu to notice her. "I tried to get Pikachu to stop you so I could capture you! Then Professor Oak would have been able to get information on you and-"
Pikachu slapped a paw over his mouth.
"You're the human?" Riolu asked in a strange tone of voice.
"No!" Pikachu shouted.
"Mnph!" Ash yelled into Pikachu's paw.
Riolu looked back and forth between the two Pikachu. Then, he began to laugh. "You're a human?" he asked Ash. "You don't look like a human! Why are you a Pikachu?"
"We followed you into that tunnel and ended up in a weird room," Pikachu finally admitted. "Ash started to turn into a Pikachu before I knew what was going on!"
Riolu giggled. "But… that means…."
"What?" Ash asked innocently.
Riolu burst into another fit of giggles, apparently forgetting that these two had tried to capture him only a few hours previously.
"Come on, what's so funny?" Pikachu demanded.
"Humans can't come here!" Riolu explained. "The only people that are allowed here are a few that Mew allowed in! If any other humans tried to come here, they'd be forced back to their own world!"
"Wait…" Pikachu began. "Does that mean that Ash shouldn't have been able to follow me?"
"I did get a little stuck," Ash admitted. "But I managed to get through that tunnel to save you, Pikachu!"
Riolu suddenly began to blush. "I… I should go now. Master Grovyle needs his flowers…"
"What's the matter?" Ash said obliviously.
"Erm, well… if you come to the city with me, you could ask Noctowl…" Riolu took off running before either of the Pikachu could ask any more questions. They both had no choice but to follow the strange Pokémon – so they did.