Ash swatted away branches as he dashed through the woods. Now that he was aware that the 'curse' of the forest was real, he was able to make out something different about the woods. There was a sort of humming buzzing around him, an eerie sort of noise. After a few minutes, he started to get a headache. With tears still streaming down his face, Ash stopped running and collapsed to the ground.
It was too much to handle. He couldn't breathe because he was crying, and now he felt like his ears were going to fall off. The trees around him were all just a mess of browns and greens with the occasional flash of color as a Pokémon peeked out of the bushes to look at the crying boy curiously. Ash just sat on the ground collecting himself for a few minutes, trying to calm down. He had to find Pikachu – that was the only thing that mattered. As long as they were together, they would be okay. As long as they were together, it wouldn't matter if Ash was himself or if the curse had gotten to him…
Ash suddenly had a picture of himself as a Pikachu, cowering in a lab somewhere while Professor Oak poked and prodded at him. A human turned into a Pokémon… wouldn't that be a sensation! Everyone would come to see him and take pictures, and…. No! Sure, Ash had been turned into a Pikachu once before, but that only lasted a day or so. Curses were the sorts of spells that were nearly impossible to get rid of. Once he was turned into a Pikachu by the forest, well, that was the end of it.
For a second, the boy considered running back out before the spell could affect him anymore. He could go with Dawn and Brock and get the tail removed, and then wait for Pikachu to come out of the forest…
Then it happened. All noise suddenly stopped, and Ash felt the same feeling that had come over him right before his tail had appeared. Ash prepared himself for the worst, but there was only a small feeling like needles poking the top of his head. His vision blurred for a moment, and he thought that he was going to faint for a minute. The feeling passed, however, and with a loud "POP!" his hearing came right back – this time much stronger than before. He could hear everything around him with perfect clarity, down to the shuffling of a Pokémon several hundred yards away. The trainer had a pretty good idea of what had just happened to him. His suspicions were confirmed when he reached up and felt the sides of his head. No ears whatsoever. Moving farther up, however, he could feel two long, fuzzy things lying flat against his head, smooshed down by his signature hat. With a trembling hand, he removed his hat, allowing his Pikachu ears to flick back into a more comfortable position.
He sighed as he took off his backpack and pulled out a pair of scissors. He hated to do this, but he had no other choice. If he was going to wear his hat, he had to cut holes for his ears. As he worked to modify his clothes, his ears flicked around on their own accord, taking in all of the sounds around him. Were it not for the fact that he was now some sort of mutant and could never go back, Ash would have found it absolutely amazing how he was able to hear everything around him. Right now, it was just pretty awesome.
His work finally done, Ash carefully slipped his ears through the holes in his hat. They fit through perfectly, and he now felt a little bit more normal. Well, as normal as he could feel, anyway. He figured that he might as well cut a hole for his tail while he had the scissors out, so he quickly unbuttoned his jeans and slipped out of them. Feeling a little bit silly sitting there in his underwear, Ash quickly snipped a hole in the back of his jeans and put them back on. With a few more snips, he was able to roll up his tail and put it through the hole with a little bit of difficulty. After putting away the scissors, the full absurdity of what he was doing suddenly hit him, causing him to blush. It was a good thing that there were no other people in the woods, or he would probably pass out out of sheer embarrassment.
"Hi!"
He had spoken too soon. With a yelp, the boy jumped up and spun around to see who had spoken, blushing furiously. Instead of a human, however, a friendly looking Raticate was looking up at him.
"What are you?" he asked. "You look like a human, but also like a Pikachu!"
Ash frantically tried to explain. "I am a human! Well… I was." He looked down at the ground. "Some jerks kidnapped my friend, Pikachu, and I ran in here to find him. There was a sign saying the forest was cursed, but I ignored it. I suddenly grew a tail after staying in the forest for a while, and my friends started to change into Pokémon too. They left to get help, but I still have to find Pikachu!"
The Raticate gave him a strange look.
"Please believe me!" Ash cried, panicking.
"Oh! I do!" the Raticate told him, throwing up his paws. "There's a legend here that says that any humans that come into the forest will turn into a Pokémon they have a close affinity to! But… it's never happened before! All of the humans stayed out of the forest!"
Ash blinked. "You know about the curse?"
Raticate nodded. "All of us do. We're told about it when we're little as a bedtime story. But… none of us really knows the full story." Raticate looked sheepish. "I never thought that it was real, but if you're turning into a Pikachu…" Something seemed to cross Raticate's mind. "Oh! Your friend is a Pikachu, right? Well, you must really love him to turn into one yourself!"
Just when the redness was starting to go out of his face, Ash blushed again.
"You know, I bet Noctowl could tell you the whole story about the forest. That way, maybe you could know if there was any way to reverse it! Well, after you find your friend again."
"Do… do you have any idea of where he could be?" Ash gasped.
"Well, there's a field over that way where a bunch of Electric-types are always playing. Maybe he's over there!" Raticate pointed to the east.
"Thank you very much, I hope I see you again someday, bye!" Ash shouted all in one breath. Raticate chuckled as the boy darted off to the field. He hoped that he would find his friend again. He seemed very nice, especially for a human.
