Pokémon Transformation Chronicals
Story #4: Shellshocked
Author Notes: The Author of this particular part would like to remain anyonomus... or however it's spelled.
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The desert was too hot for Ash's liking.
I've been stuck in this stupid place for days, he thought. I'm not even sure which way I'm headed anymore. The stupid sandstorms. The freezing nights. Stupid climate here's like a seesaw. I'm going to get myself killed out here. Can't I just turn back?
He shook his head, his friends, Brock and Misty, immediately appearing in his thoughts. They were laying there with green looks to their faces and clearly struggling to talk. They had contracted some disease thanks to another one of Team Rocket's plans. This time, though, it had been almost too successful. Only quick work by Ash and Pikachu had stopped them from being able to kill outright, and what's more, it was only sheer luck, Ash remembered painfully, that had stopped him from catching it too. There wasn't any cure - they didn't even know what the disease was.
"There's only one choice", Misty had told him, through cracked lips and coughing fits. "A place in the desert near here. It's at least several days away, but I remember hearing about a professor who might have the knowledge to save us. He stays right in the middle of it. He's eccentric, obviously."
Her frankness hurt him. She wasn't providing any comfort. It was possible they could die. With no other help available for so many miles it was the best chance they had. It was obvious, from their looks and lack of strength, that they needed help quickly. Ash was the only one well enough to go, despite Misty's protests, insisting that she came too, over time it had become clear that neither her or Brock could accompany Ash on the trek. To make matters worse, in case Team Rocket were to return and try to finish the job and kill them completely, Pikachu would have to stay behind. He wasn't ill and was the only other person who could protect them capably.
Ash remembered shivering at the idea. Pikachu had almost always stuck by his side and he didn't want to separate from his most beloved Pokémon without a good reason. Still, Pikachu himself had said it. This was a good enough reason. Better that they didn't ask for more.
After a day or so of hesitation, and finally, after Pikachu, Misty and Brock's protests, Ash had set out. It really was their only hope - he had waited for a while in vain, praying for some other solution to become clear. But once he finally understood that waiting was slimming their chances of a recovery even further, he wasted no more time. He stood up, wished them well, and, taking as precious much supplies that he could (Misty and Brock needing all the food and water they could get) set off through the forest to the foreboding desert.
And here he was now. Under the beating sun. On some stupid sand dune that looked the same as any other.
So it was clear to him. He couldn't just turn back. That would be a complete failure. And, still, he thought, he had some of his most trusty Pokémon with him. Despite the heat and thirst that was beginning to pound down upon his constitution, they still didn't fail to make him smile. Sometimes. There was still plenty of chance. That, he thought, expression suddenly determined, he would do anything for his friends. After all, they had got him out of way too many situations before. He'd keep going - and that was that.
Several hours passed, the sun now high in the sky, and despite all his determination it was only a little longer before he found himself parched and collapsing. He kept getting back up but after a while it was becoming futile - his particular penchant for food had made run his supplies out too fast. Even if he had been conservative, it would've bought him only a few extra hours. That, though, was a meagre comfort. Vague hallucinations that were beginning to peek on the corners of his mind. Soon enough Ash's thirst was stopping him from thinking of anything else. There obviously wasn't any water in the desert. He smiled a little thinly. He knew that much.
Soon a solution came to himself. Squirtle! Squirtle was a water type. Heck, he was practically water. Wasting no time scrabbling at his Pokeballs he soon had Squirtle standing out in front of him, looking at his trainer concernedly. It took Squirtle a mere glance around to see exactly what was going to be asked of him. Immediately he took a step back from Ash.
"Water," Ash said quietly, unable to speak any louder.
Squirtle stood there for a moment, blinking. He came forward reluctantly, almost torturously slow for Ash. He tried pointing in the distance, trying to divert Ash's attention anywhere but him.
"Oh, not now, please don't do this right now," Ash said, groaning desperately. "I need water now. Come on. You've got some, right?" he said, voice lowering as it seemed that he had might not.
Squirtle nodded some. Of course he had. He just didn't want to give it to Ash.
"Look," Ash said, unable to be nice in what was a bad situation. "Just give me some water."
That was a direct request. And no matter how strangely reluctant Squirtle was to do whatever Ash asked, he had to do it. His loyalties were too deeply imbued in him to counter a direct, heartfelt request. And, well, Ash really was in trouble. Ash held out a jug. A few moments later, with his reluctant cooperation, it was full of water.
Squirtle looked on as Ash quickly began gulping it down, being careful not to spill a drop anywhere and coughing a little as the sudden gush of liquids ran down his dry throat. The jug was soon empty, his lips back to their moisturised state and he no longer looked like someone in need of dire medical attention. Ash smiled. "Thanks." Squirtle didn't respond happily in kind - he still looked on gravely, Ash frowning. "What's the problem, Squirtle?" he said, in a better mood now that he was not so thirsty and could actually talk properly. All the response he got was a sort of shrugging from Squirtle, who clearly wasn't able to convey the problem easily and didn't intend to frustrate Ash by spending the next hour making it obvious. As Squirtle knew, there would be no need for that in a moment.
The moment came.
Ash felt a strange tickling sensation quietly creeping across his body. He blinked blearily, wondering if this was yet another thing the desert was throwing at him. Had his dehydration had a lasting effect on him? He had no time to elaborate on this train of thought, sitting down quite hard onto the sand. The tickling was becoming quite overwhelming, transposing over into more of a vivid pricking sensation that was soon stabbing him in every way. It wasn't so much hurtful as it was irritating, like millions of little gnats biting at his skin. Yet there was nothing to account for that.
As strangely as the feeling had arrived, it disappeared again. For a moment all Ash could feel was the burn of the sand and the dull throb of the sun. Suddenly a yelp escaped him as, into the strange void of feeling he had been plunged into, a sudden burning feeling appeared and shot through his spine, over his back. Now this did hurt, more than Ash was able to stand without doubling over. For a fleeting moment he thought worriedly that whatever it was that Brock and Misty had came down with, he had caught it too - but obviously he hadn't, as a moment later he looked around and found a shell growing out of his back. That certainly wasn't what had happened to the others.
Ash's last doubts on that theory were expelled when he found his body beginning to bulge and stretch, accompanied by popping and clicking noises, the pain being added to the burning sensation that had yet to relent and had now been sweeping down his legs. He grew taller, for a second or so being impressed by how he was growing much more muscular. He looked down at Squirtle who now looked a little smaller compared to his new, slightly higher, stature and couldn't suppress a grin.
Squirtle shot him a knowing, almost crestfallen look. In a moment of strange clarity, Ash understood, his face falling. It was the water - no wonder he had been so slow in letting Ash drink it. As great as his beefing up evidently was, he was scared and, in a sudden reversal of emotions - perhaps brought about by the physiological changes happening to him - was scared. What was happening to him? Was it fatal? Was it some...deformity? And then there was another cry of pain as his ears began melting in a strange way, forming into creamy looking, feathery like ears that were adorned upon his head. The acoustics of the desert noticeably changed as his body adapted to the new, more tuned ears with a slickness that most people could not boast of possessing.
When things were already beginning to look grim, Ash now wondering if it was his sanity, his skin began changing. This was not a welcome change and Ash's eyes bulged. It no longer felt as rubbery as it once had and was taking on an unhealthy blue tinge. At least, it looked unhealthy for a moment, but soon it was firmly on the right side of the spectrum and was blue. His size had levelled out, finally, no more popping and clicking noises as he stood higher than he had before. Squirtle was now having a little trouble suppressing his glee at another related to his kind appearing before his eyes.
His feet began tickling and hands melding together before his eyes, trying to flex his fingers and no longer receiving any such feeling or response from the muscles that had been there. It felt to him like the heat of the desert was finally melting him into a pool of some blue, gooey stuff. He tore his eyes away from his hands to look at the sun for a moment, as if to check his theory, squinting as his eyes seemed strangely sensitive and hurting much more than they usually would.
While Ash felt his face tightening and mouth morphing, he put a hand to his chest. Two things struck him - he no longer had hands, rather three claws on the blue fleshy things that were now his arms. And he no longer had a chest, rather a shell that went all the way around him. An immediate feeling of homeliness kicked in, though, and the shell did not feel alien to him for much longer.
He felt his face in surprise for a while, exploring the way his features had almost completely changed, nose near enough nonexsistent. Still, there was plenty else for Ash to be surprised about. His clothes had torn in places thanks to his sudden size increase. It had not been so drastic as to destroy it all, but now he looked quite tattered, holes in his shirt and torn shoes clinging to him resolutely.
Ash now felt quite cool. He took off his tee shirt and looked at it and the rest of his clothing despondently. Well. It didn't seem like he'd be needing them. In fact, to a point, he had to admit that this felt good. And strangely familiar. Then it dawned on him. The water, it hadn't deformed him. He had become a Wartortle - the evolution of Squirtle. Well, he thought, it sort of made sense.
Throughout all of this Squirtle had watched quietly, but in the latter half of the transformation had broken out into a little grinning dance as he saw what had happened. Ash had never ingested his water before - he wouldn't of wanted him to - but now that he had, he saw no reason why he couldn't at least be happy. To Ash, the little sounds of glee he was making now began to form into something intelligible, the final pieces of his transformation slotting together and providing him with abilities that he certainly didn't recollect as possessing before.
"Squirtle?" Ash said, his voice changed, body feeling alien for a while more as it adapted to his new anatomy with only a minimum of clumsiness, it had to be said. Squirtle stopped dancing, looking stunned for a moment until he understood what had happened. He could understand him now. As much as Squirtle knew this was coming, it still stunned him to see that they were now perfectly capable of talking to each other.
"...Yeah?" Squirtle finally responded in a rather meek voice. He was sincerely hoping that Ash wasn't mad at him - especially since he had started dancing around chuckling like a little schoolgirl when he saw Ash's transformation.
There was a pregnant pause from both sides. The sun continued to hammer down more so than before, as if angry that nobody was paying attention to the excruciating heat it was bringing about, or the blinding yellow sky it gracefully painted. In fact, neither of the two really felt the dryness of the air anymore, or felt even vaguely clammy. Well, that solved one problem.
"What just happened?" Ash said, stunned and happy all at the same time. He didn't know what to think anymore.
"Well...it was a hard decision," Squirtle admitted. "I don't understand completely myself. But drinking my water made you a Wartotle," he said matter of factly. Ash chuckled.
"I know that much. It's not all bad."
"I think it's worse than you expect. It's permanent."
The weight of this statement took a while to get to Ash, but when it did, it felt truly like a ton of bricks. A million doors had just closed themselves to him. How could he ever be accepted in this state? How could he talk to Misty like this? He ran a hand over his shell for a moment, feeling new strength and vitality in his previously weak body. The bumps and hardness of the shell felt normal to him. It was clear that no matter how things were to go, he would never feel the urge to return to a humanoid form. It would've been pointless to try, anyway - Squirtle seemed set in his opinon. And, he thought, looking over his body, he couldn't imagine some of the contortions his body had had to undergo being reversible. This was going to be a problem.
He sat for a long time, staring onto the horizon. Squirtle could see that the complete upturning of everything Ash had took for granted was going to take some coming to terms with. He knew, as well as did everyone else, it seemed, that Ash had held something for Misty. He had had vauge plans. And now none of those could ever come to light.
Still, for the million doors that had closed, a million more had opened. He had been blessed with a sound body. And as much as it may've never made itself apparent, Ash did have a sound mind.
And, at least, there was hope. He could save his friends, now, rather than have died in the attempt, lay where nobody would find him, where nothing could save him, disappeared into the dust of time. No. He still had the power to make his mark upon the rest of the world. He could make good of this.
The resolve he had displayed earlier in trudging through the desert came back to him. It may of been a rash decision. There may have been a better way. But this was this, and, with a steely set face, he was going to make the most of it. He was still going to be with Misty, no matter what Giovanni or his people threw at him. No matter what the likes of Jesse and James tried. No matter how many deserts were thrown at him.
Squirtle looked up at Ash, concerned. More time had passed in thought than Ash had expected, and he snapped back to the situation, sat upon a sand dune in the middle of some unnamed desert. "Boss?"
Ash chuckled incredulously. "Boss? Well, I guess that's one way to put it..." What a character he could be.
"Umm... Well," he said, scratching the back of his head. "You're not going to like this," he said, pointing west. Ash looked and immediately felt like he had been punched in the stomach.
There was the professor's tower, a jet black against the yellows of the desert. A little longer and Ash may never had needed to drink from Squirtle. He might not be how he was now. He felt about ready to cry. It became clear to him that Squirtle had not been reluctant for just the transformational properties of his water, but because of the proximity of the tower. The terrible nearness of salvation! Ash had just been too tired and broken to listen to Squirtle's attempts. He sighed.
Then a voice came to his mind from the past, a realisation. This was just the first test of his strength - only moments ago he had decided to make the most of this and not evil just get to him and break him down. What's more, it was no good moping now feeling sorry for himself, not while, no, not while his closest friends still lay there dying, hoping on him.
Nevermind. His fault, then. A mistake. He'd learn. He was still alive.
"Let's go," Ash said, not even commenting on what had happened. Squirtle looked stunned. Any other trainer would have gone beserk, he knew that. He was expecting the worse. He didn't get it.
The two began walking down the dune and towards the horizon.
