Pokémon Transformation Chronicles

by Ryu the Weredragon

A collection of stories based in the Pokémon Anime universe, where characters from the show are transformed in some physical way. MultiAuthor, some restrictions apply. R&R Please!

14. Out of Pokégypt

Out of Pokégypt

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.

Author note: This chapter was done by Ri2

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"This is so cool!" Tracey said eagerly as he examined a large scroll of papyrus on the wall with elaborate and beautiful pictograms on it, copying the images into his sketchbook with a fanatical amount of zeal. "Don't you think so, Misty?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, I guess," Misty said, leaning against a nearby display case, trying to stifle her yawn.

"Azuri!" her Azurill, a huggable round blue-mouse-like creature with a big ball at the end of its spring-like tail said cheerfully, squirming about in her arms.

Tracey, the dark-haired headband-wearing sketch artist and assistant of Professor Oak, had taken Misty, the lovely red-haired Cerulean Gym Leader, to the Pewter City museum to see a new exhibit that had opened up on the history and artwork of the ancient empire of Pokegypt. The room was filled with cases containing magnificent pieces of jewelry, sculptures, a mummy or two, and other items found in ancient tombs or temples, while papyrus (or representations of it) was hanging from the wall so any museum-goer could see the scenery they depicted. Some of it was as mundane as showing farmers at work and presenting their harvest to a pharaoh, others showed fantastically vivid (and gorey) scenes of battle, and a few were as surreal to show scenes of people journeying to the afterlife. It wasn't that Misty didn't find all this interesting, but she had been pulled rather early out of bed to get here, Tracey having pulled some strings by merit of being Professor Oak's assistant so that they could get in to the exhibit before the museum opened, and so have more time to see (and draw) everything without other visitors getting in the way. Misty admitted that it was kind of cool to have the whole exhibit to herself (and Tracey), she was just a little tired due to lack of sleep. She had been up late cleaning the gym, and her sisters had been of little help (as usual).

Leaving Tracey to his faithful copying of the pictures on the walls, Misty wandered over to a glass-fenced enclosure by the wall where a number of life-sized statues of people with the heads of Pokemon stood regally on pedestals, looking out on the exhibit as if all of it was their domain and kingdom. Misty set Azurill down for a moment so that she could better read the information placards explaining the purpose of the statues. According to the placards, the ancient Pokegyptians had carved statues like these to honor their gods, perfect beings whom they thought embodied a union of human and Pokemon to obtain dominion over both. Shown here were the Pidgeot-headed Horus, Feraligatr-headed Sobek, Houndoom-headed Anubis, and…

Misty paused for a moment, glancing at the statue of a beautiful woman with the head of a cat. The placard said that was Bast, goddess of cats. She apparently had had an entire city built in her name, and because of her cat Pokemon were sacred in Pokegypt and had even been mummified alongside their masters so that they could travel to the afterlife together. Feeling oddly drawn to the cat-headed statue, she walked over to examine it better, forgetting the other gods (and Azurill) for the moment.

Misty studied the statue, ignoring the sounds of Tracey muttering happily in the background or Azurill squeaking and hopping about, not sure why she felt so fascinated by this statue. It wasn't that she particularly loved cat Pokemon, although she did find them cute and somewhat intriguing. She might have even gotten one of her own, if her sisters weren't all madly allergic to cat hair and if the Cerulean Gym wasn't so full of water, which might make creatures of the feline persuasion uncomfortable. So, with the fact that she was not an avid cat lover established, just why did she feel so attracted to this statue of Bast? What was so hypnotic and enamoring about the statue's empty stone eyes?

"Azurill!"

"Hmm?" Misty was snapped out of her trance by her foster 'child's' loud cry of exultation. She turned around to find that her baby Pokemon was bouncing happily on top of a case full of ancient (and probably very fragile) goblets, which rattled with every impact the water mouse made on the glass shielding them. "Azurill, get down from there!" She didn't want to have to take responsibility for breaking a very valuable artifact thousands of years old!

"Azu!" Azurill obediently jumped off the case…but unfortunately, overshot Misty completely and arced right towards the statue of Bast.

"Oh no! Azurill, stop!" Misty cried, lunging for her Pokemon, trying to grab it before it could hit the statue.

Azurill landed in her arms…right after it had rebounded off the chest of the Bast statue, causing it to topple backwards on its pedestal. Misty's face went white with horror as Azurill chirped blissfully in her arms, unaware of what it had just done. Misty held stock-still, not even daring to breath, praying that the statue would stop tilting over and regain its earlier balance.

The statue continued to tilt backwards…until it hit the wall, cracking it with a teeth-grinding crunch (the wall, not the statue) and stopped moving. Misty sighed in relief.

That's when, with an even more sickening crack, the statue crumbled to pieces, collapsing to the floor in a pile of dust and broken stone. Half of Bast's face stared up at Misty accusingly from the heap of rubble, as if to blame her for what had just happened. "Fuck!" Misty cursed, causing Azurill to squeal happily and try to repeat the new word it had just learned in Pokespeak.

"Holy shit," Tracey said in astonishment, rushing over to see what had made all the noise and finding the totally destroyed Bast statue. "Misty, did you-"

"No! It was Azurill's fault!" Misty protested. Azurill babbled mindlessly, not paying attention to what was going on around it.

"You're still going to have to take responsibility," Tracey said gravely. "It's your Pokemon, after all."

"Yeah, that you gave to me!" she snapped. When he flinched, she grimaced and started over. "Sorry, you didn't deserve that, it's just… Look, maybe if we get out of here quickly the museum people will figure something else caused it and we won't get in trouble. I mean, no alarms have gone off, they probably haven't even noticed it's broken yet, right?"

"Uh, Misty? The alarms here are silent." Tracey pointed to a security camera hanging from the wall nearby pointed right at them. "And assuming the guard isn't in the bathroom or taking a coffee break, I think they already know what happened and will be down here any minute to get us. Or you, anyway, I didn't do anything. Then again, I did convince them to let you in with me, so… Crap, Professor Oak will never trust me again! And they'll probably ban me from here for life!" He moaned in anguish. "Oh man, what are we gonna do?!"

"I can't afford to pay for this!" Misty cried, squeezing Azurill too hard and causing it to wail in discomfort. "Even with all the shows my sisters put on, we can barely pay the rent due to all the stupid beauty products and expensive stuff they waste our money on!" She wondered for a moment if this was how Ash felt when she kept demanding him to pay her back for destroying her bike, which he couldn't afford and in the end never got around to doing because he never seemed to have enough money. "Um… Crapcrapcrap. Maybe we can blame it on Team Rocket?"

"Security cameras," Tracey reminded her.

Misty's shoulders sagged. "Oh, yeah. Shoot."

As Tracey and Misty continued to panic, and Azurill finally picked up on its mother's distress and started crying, nobody noticed the cloud of white sparkling mist rising from the pile of rubble that had once been Bast's statue until it was too late. Too late, as in, it rushed forward and poured itself down Misty's throat, causing Tracey to gasp and Misty to stagger backwards, clutching her throat and gasping for air, dropping Azurill in the process. The blue mouse landed on its bouncy tail-ball to cushion the fall, and looked up at Misty in confusion, wondering what was wrong with its mother. "Misty!" Tracey cried, rushing forward and grabbing Misty before she could collapse. "Are you all right? What was that?!"

"I-I don't know," Misty gasped, shaking Tracey off and recovering her breath. "I feel… I feel… Ugh…" She grimaced and suddenly stumbled backwards, almost falling, but she managed to grab the railing of the fence surrounding the statues just in time and was able to regain her balance. She squeezed her eyes shut and gasped in pain, frightening Tracey as she felt strange sensations rippling through her body. Her head pounded as these sensations, or rather, memories rushed into her brain, filling her mind with images of golden sands, a great blue river, magnificent palaces, and long days under the sun with her loved ones until…until…

She groaned and crouched down to the ground, her legs turning to jelly and unable to support herself as more strange memories and sensations filled her body. Quite naturally, Tracey panicked again. "Misty!" He quickly knelt down in front of her and grabbed her shoulders. "What's happening?! Are you all right?!"

"Uhhh…" Misty grimaced and shook her head slowly, starting to gain control of whatever was happening to her and…realizing, remembering…becoming… "I… I think I'm okay, Tracey," she gasped, opening her eyes. "I'm just… I'm becoming what I, what I'm supposed to be, what I've always been meant for."

Tracey stared at her blankly as she got back to her feet and took a few steps away from him, confused by how quickly she had regained her poise and by the weird look in her eyes. "Huh?" He glanced at Azurill, as if the baby Pokemon could answer his questions, but it seemed just as clueless as he was.

"You see, I'm more than just Misty," Misty said, glancing at the ruined statue. "And I'm just realizing, remembering that now. "For I…am…Bast!" Tracey jumped, not just because of the savage, almost feline yowl he heard in that last word but also because Misty's pupils abruptly contracted into cat-like slits. And then there was a flash of light, and Misty…

Wasn't exactly Misty anymore. "Wow," said a dumbstruck Tracey, mouth hanging open. He wondered for a moment if he should be getting down on his knees or something.

Misty had grown at least a head taller than him, her physique changing from that of a teenage young woman to that of an adult supermodel, and a very attractive one at that. Her tight red gold-trimmed floor-length sleeveless Egyptian gown perfectly showed off her rather sensuous curves and larger chest. Slits in the side of the dress allowed her freer movement and also showed off her legs, which were very shapely…and also covered in a thin layer of soft velvety black fur that ended in sandaled feet somewhat smaller than those of a human's with paws and claws in place of toes and nails. Her slim arms, also covered in black fur, ended in hands that seemed human enough but had rather sharp claws that could probably be retracted if their owner felt like it. Her wrists were adorned with gold bracelets, and jeweled rings were on several of her fingers. A number of golden necklaces were hung around her neck with various hieroglyphic signs, ankhs, eyes, and scarabs adorning them. Her face had changed completely, going from being a human to that of a feline's, covered in black fur with a slightly protruding nose and a demure, somewhat enigmatic smile. Her eyes were still the same blue they had always been, but the pupils were slits, so even those had changed in a way. Her hair was still red, oddly enough, making a nice contrast to her pitch-black fur. It had grown longer, and most of it hung down to the small of her back while two clumps went neatly over her shoulders. A golden headdress in the shape of a pair of wings framed her forehead, the jeweled heads of a Pidgeot and an Arbok growing out from the front of the headdress. A pair of triangular cat ears with small gold rings piercing the sides grew out from the top of her head. To complete the look, a long, thin tail grew down from behind her, coming out through another slit in the back of her dress, waving back and forth and hypnotizing Azurill, who was easily distracted due to its very brief attention span.

"Um… uh… wow," Tracey repeated, looking at Misty's face, then her chest, then her face again. "M-Misty, is that you?!"

"Yes, and no," the cat-creature told him. "I am Misty, and I am also the great goddess Bast, divine patron of cats and ruler of humans and Pokemon!"

"Oh," said Tracey. "Um… so, what, you were stuck in that statue and by breaking it Misty let you possess her or something?"

Misty shook her head. "No, Tracey, I was always Bast. I think. But it's still me! Um… how do I put this…" She screwed her feline face up in concentration. "Okay, a few thousand years ago all the gods of Pokegypt were killed in a great battle with the chaos serpent Apep. But I was able to preserve some of my essence in a statue of myself, that statue which Azurill destroyed." She knelt down and stroked the head of the little blue mouse, causing it to squeak in pleasure. "And you have my eternal thanks for that, little one." She looked back at Tracy. "Anyway, I knew that my eternal soul might one day be reborn in a mortal form, so I preserved my essence in that statue in the slim hope that someday, my reincarnation might stumble upon it, allowing me to transmute frail mortal flesh into divine matter and ascend to godhood once more."

"Oh," said Tracey. "Cool. Uh, hey, can I make a picture of you sometime? It would be really cool!"

"Of course," said Misty. She narrowed her eyes. "As long as you don't fulfill male fantasies with it, like you do with the other pictures of attractive women I known you've drawn. Because if you do, I'll claw out your eyes and eat your testicles."

Tracey laughed nervously, getting the distinct feeling that she meant it, and quickly changed the subject. "Um, so, now that you've gone from being Misty, Cerulean Gym leader to Misty, great god and reincarnation of Bast, what're you going to do with yourself?"

"The souls of my family from ancient Pokegypt have been reborn as well, in the forms of people I knew before my ascension. I must find them and share my divine essence with them so that they may regain their immortality and godhood as well," Misty explained, standing up and cradling Azurill in her arms.

"Oh. Neat. Um, hey, am I…"

"No," Misty said flatly. Seeing Tracey's face fall in disappointment, she added, "But I will make you my court artist, if you like. I intend to rebuild my palace and form a new kingdom where my family and I may dwell and reign forever, and we will need beautiful masterpieces to fill our realm. Masterpieces the likes of which I am sure an artist of your caliber can produce."

"Oh!" Tracey said, flushing with gratitude. "Th-thank you! Uh, but, I couldn't leave Professor Oak-"

"I'll give you triple what he's paying you now," Misty interrupted.

"I'm in," Tracey said.

Misty's ears twitched. "The guards are coming. Finally. We should get out of here."

"Huh? I don't hear any-" Tracey started.

"I have better hearing than you do now. Let's go," Misty said, gesturing with one arm and causing glittering mist to rise up from her feet and swirl around her. "Stand close to me, unless you want to be left behind."

"Ah, no, no, I'm coming," Tracey said quickly, stepping close to her and letting the mist swirl around him as well. "But, um, what about the statue over there?" Misty gestured with one hand, and suddenly the bits and pieces of the broken statue rose up from the ground and reassembled themselves back together, in mere moments totally reconstructing the statue and making it seem as if it had never been broken at all. "Whoa."

Misty laughed. "Being a god has its advantages."

"Do those advantages include erasing security footage to make it look as if we'd never been here?" Tracey asked hopefully.

"I have no reason to hide. Now that I have become a god once more, I want all to know that I have returned and will soon establish my kingdom," Misty said proudly.

"Oh," said Tracey in disappointment.

"Azuri!" Azurill squeaked happily, just before the mist covered them up completely and dissipated, taking them with it.

A moment later, the overweight, underpaid museum security guard stumbled into the room, red in the face and gasping for breath, on the verge of a heart attack. He glanced around, his face going even redder with anger when he saw that there was absolutely nothing wrong at all, and everything was in its place. Fuming with rage, he turned and started back towards the security desk, intending to have a word with his partner for interrupting his nap for a crummy false alarm.

…

Elsewhere…

Two feline figures just as, if not more, divine than Misty/Bast were heavily engaged in their own activities. The larger, Mewtwo, a tall purple and white bony figure that looked only vaguely like a cat was levitating a few inches off the floor, his long purple tail curled around his legs, eyes shut and a blue aura glowing around him. He was deep in a meditative trance.

The other creature, Mew, an utterly adorable pink vaguely kitten-like creature who bore an odd resemblance to Mewtwo (Or was it the other way around?) was also deep in a trance…one of sleep. She was lying on her back on a large squishy pink bubble, snoring loudly, a snot bubble growing from her nose. Those who called her the epitome of beauty, grace, and perfection would find themselves hard-pressed to keep saying that if they saw her like this, especially when both her snot bubble and cushion bubble popped, causing her to wake up with a jolt and tumble to the floor, twisting and fumbling and trying to untangle herself from her tail and limbs so she could get to her feet.

Once she had recovered her bearings and licked her pink fur back into a presentable state, she floated into the air and poked Mewtwo in the side. "Hey." Nothing happened. She frowned and poked him again, harder. "Hey!" Still nothing. Mewtwo's face remained closed and expressionless, eyes shut in meditation. Mew scowled, then started rapidly flying around him, poking just about every inch of flesh she could while yelling, "Heyheyheyheyheyheyheyheyhey!" Mewtwo still remained in a trance. Mew backed away, realizing she needed to pull out the big guns. She conjured a paper bag out of free molecules, blew into it, held it shut with one hand to keep the air trapped, then popped it, creating a loud noise while jolted Mewtwo out of a trance with a cry of alarm and caused him to fall to the ground in a tumble of limbs and tail that took him a few minutes to wriggle his way out of.

"Hey!" Mew said cheerfully when Mewtwo had finally sorted himself out and was glaring at her with purple eyes burning with hatred.

"What," he snarled. "Is it? I was meditating."

"Yeah, but I picked up something way more important in the ethers and figured I should tell you," Mew said. "It's not like you were doing anything important anyway."

"Oh no," he said sarcastically, standing up and looming over her due to his much-greater height. "Nothing important at all, I was just on the verge of becoming one with the universe and learning the meaning of life."

"Oh, is that all?" Mew said dismissively with a carefree wave of a hand. "I figured out all that ages ago, it's not so tough. You can always do it later."

Mewtwo's eye twitched. "Why the powers that be chose to invest such great energies…the power to bring life into being from nothingness, to control matter and energy, to bend reality to your whim…into a happy-go-lucky simpleton like you I will never understand."

"Better someone who knows how to have fun rather than a grouchy sourpuss like yourself," Mew said honestly. "Now, listen! This is important! An old friend of mine's just woken up after being gone for a really really long time! Isn't that great?"

Mewtwo gnashed his teeth. "You mean to tell me you interrupted my quest for ultimate knowledge just to tell me that an old friend of yours is back in town?!"

"Yes," Mew said plainly. "And also because if you had delved any deeper in your meditation, your head would have exploded. You're not ready for that level of enlightenment just yet." He blinked. "Now, let's go and watch how my friend is doing!"

A large flat screen television set popped out of nowhere, along with a pair of very comfortable-looking recliner chairs built for Mew and Mewtwo's size. The larger cat jumped as they appeared, then glared at Mew in annoyance. "I don't think I'm ever going to get the hang of you defying the laws of physics and making things appear out of nowhere."

"Yes you will, give it a few hundred years," she said reassuringly, floating into the smaller seat and switching on the television with a thought. Then she summoned a big tub of popcorn and started munching on it. "Want some?"

Mewtwo made a look of disgust. "No. What makes you think I'm not ready for that level of enlightenment?"

"You're too self-centered. And angry all the time," Mew replied.

"I am not angry all the time!" Mewtwo protested angrily.

Mew threw a popcorn kernel at him. It bounced off his head. He stared at her incredulously. "Shh! It's just getting to the good part!" she said, pointing to the television screen.

…

The cloud of mist reformed far from the Pewter museum, then faded away, depositing Misty, Tracey, and Azurill in the main pool room of the Cerulean Gym. "Okay," Misty said. "I just stopped here to drop you off, I'll be back later after I go and revive my family."

Tracey made a face. "You couldn't have dropped me off at Professor Oak's?"

"The gym's closer, and you'll be staying here anyway after I turn it into a palace," Misty said.

"You're turning it into a palace?" said the surprised Tracey.

She shrugged. "Sure, can't exactly rule a kingdom from a place like this, now can I? Now…" She paused and frowned. "Wait…something's not right."

"What do you mean?" Tracey asked, looking around. Everything seemed in order to him, albeit a bit empty and silent.

"It's too quiet. The gym should have opened up a couple of hours ago. There should be somebody here to battle trainers. But nobody's here." She sniffed the air. "The Pokemon are all in their Pokeballs. And my sisters haven't been through here all morning, I'd smell them. Why would-" She stopped. Her eyes flared in anger. "They wouldn't."

"Uh, wouldn't what?" asked the confused Tracey. Instead of answering him, Misty handed him Azurill and stormed from the room, heading for the gym's lobby. "Um…okay, just ignore me, I don't mind…"

He followed after the angry cat-goddess and found her glaring angrily at the gym's main doors, which were closed and locked. That didn't seem to hinder Misty in the slightest, she simply ripped the door off its hinges and threw it to the corner of the lobby, much to Tracey's astonishment, and examined the large sign hanging outside. She snarled, eyes flaring with rage. "Those bitches! They promised!"

"Uh, pardon me, don't mean to be a bother, but… can you tell me what's gotten you in such a snit?" Tracey asked, cringing when Misty turned her angry feline glare at him. "Ack! Please don't kill me, you need someone to be your court artist after all!"

She ripped the sign off the doors and thrusted it into Tracey's face. "Read this!"

Tracey did, though he went a little cross-eyed at first since it was so close to him. "'Gym, like, closed on account of it being such a, like, perfect day to work on our tans. Like, come back. Tomorrow. Or next week. Or whenever.'" Misty growled angrily and broke the sign in half with her bare hands, er, claws. "I take it they aren't supposed to be working on their tans today."

"No, they're not!" Misty snarled, pacing back and forth, tail flicking angrily behind her. "They promised me they'd take some responsibility for a change and manage the gym and properly fight any trainer who came to get a badge today while I was out spending the day with you! Instead, they're slacking off, as usual, to go do whatever they want, leaving me to do all the work!" She clawed at the air furiously. "Well, you know what? I don't have to take this anymore! I'm a god now and can do whatever I please, and right now I'd really be pleased if I went to have a little chat with my sisters about taking responsibility and keeping their promises!" Cackling evilly enough to raise the hairs on Tracey's back, Misty vanished in a cloud of mist.

Tracey stared at where Misty had disappeared for a moment, then glanced down at Azurill. "Did that scare you too?"

"Azuri!" Azurill squeaked happily.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." It didn't take long for Tracey to figure out where Misty and her sisters had gone off to. Since the sign said they were sunbathing, Tracey figured there was a good chance that the older women had gone up to the sundeck they had recently had built on the gym's roof so they wouldn't have to walk all the way to the beach if they wanted to sunbathe. (Not that they didn't still go to the beach to do that anyway, but since they bothered to put a sundeck in, why not use it, right?) After leaving Azurill in the kitchen with some food, and entrusting his Marill to keep an eye on her (Not very hard, seeing as his Marill was Azurill's mother), Tracey headed up the stairs to the roof. He had left Azurill behind because he didn't want the infant water mouse's mind to be horribly warped by the no doubt grisly and bloody massacre that Tracey was half-expecting to find as all that was left of the Sensational Cerulean Sisters. In her current form and attitude, Misty was fully capable of doing such a thing, and he didn't know what implications that meant for him if he were going to take up that job as court artist, since he wasn't sure he could cope with working for a killer.

Much to his relief, there was no horrifically graphic crime scene when he got up to the roof. Instead, all he found was Misty proudly standing on the sundeck, with three… creatures that Tracey supposed must have once been her sisters purring and mewling and groveling at her heels. All three of them resembled Delcatty, except that they were humanoid, sort of like Misty, but not as lovely and with much more skin showing. (Furry skin, but still skin.)

"Oh Mistress, please forgive us!" begged one of the three, probably Daisy. It was easy for Tracey to recognize her, since they had dated for a little while before she had dumped him for being 'too nerdy' and drawing pictures of her all the time, which at first she had thought was flattering and later said was just creepy. Like the other two, the majority of her fur was cream-colored, but she had long wavy orange-blond hair down to her waist with big triangular orange-topped ears sticking out from the side of her head and a blond tuft of fur on the end of her tail, which was hanging limp in submission. She was almost naked save for a cloth wrapped around her breasts (which Tracey could have sworn were smaller than they had used to be, and now smaller than Misty's current chest) and a loincloth. Gold manacles were locked around her wrists and ankles, and a gold collar wrapped around her neck, though there were no chains attached to them. They were pretty and had rubies set into them, but they were still manacles. Her eyes, which had once been a color Tracey couldn't quite recall, were now solid black and glistening with tears. "We're sorry we shirked our duties to you, we just wanted to warm our fur in the sun for a few moments and lost track of time!"

"We'll never do it again, we promise!" wailed Violet, recognizable by her long wavy blue hair, with two locks hanging down her shoulders. She wore clothing (if you can call it that) similar to Daisy's, with silver manacles and collar set with sapphires.

"You may take our lives, and replace us with servants more to your liking, if you wish…" whimpered Lily, whose neon pink hair was shorter than the others and came down over her shoulders much like Violet's. Her manacles and shackles were bronze, set with topazes. "Our souls are yours forever, you know that!"

Misty gave them a small and satisfied, and haughtily feline, smile. "Never fear, my handmaidens. I am not a needlessly cruel goddess, and it pleases me for you to serve me. I will forgive this disobedience and allow you to bathe in the sun with me at a later date as long as you agree to be more diligent in the future and work twice as hard at your tasks today than you would usually."

The three humanoid Delcatty exhaled joyfully and bowed so low their heads touched the ground. "Oh, thank you Mistress!" Daisy cried in gratitude.

"We won't let you down!" said Violet.

"You can always count on us to serve you! We are your most loyal of servants, our lives are yours to do with as you please!" Lily said.

"I know, my dears, I know," Misty said, bending down to scratch each of the three things that had once been her sisters behind the ears in turn and causing them to moan in ecstasy and purr loudly.

"What did you do to them?" Tracey asked as Misty got up and walked over to him, the three sisters following her on hands and knees, as if afraid to be too far away from her divine presence.

"One of my powers is the ability to turn humans into feline Pokemon or feline Pokemon anthropomorphs," Misty explained. "I can then bend their minds to my will and make them do whatever I please. It is my power and prerogative, as goddess of cats. To punish my sisters for breaking their promises and shirking their responsibilities, I have erased their memories and turned them into my obedient (and less pretty) slaves. Now they will finally do all the work that they have always shoved onto me!" She glanced at Tracey. "Does this bother you?"

"No, not really," Tracey said. He was still smarting from Daisy dumping him. "Um, wait, does that mean you could do something like this to me, too?"

"Yes, but I wouldn't alter your mind, and I'd only do it if you wanted me too," Misty told him. "Since you joined me willingly, it is your choice whether you would like to stay human or be transformed."

"Oh." Tracey frowned in thought. "Um, would I get, you know, more buff or something? Less, um, nerdy, if you know what I mean?"

She gave him a very catty smile. "If that is what you desire."

Tracey grinned. "Well, I'll think about it."

"Very well." She turned, looking off into the distance. "I must go now, to find the reincarnations of my destined mate and our children. Once we have reunited, we shall return here, and my palace shall rise once more." She glanced down at her sisters, purring and rubbing up against her legs. "Handmaidens, I want you to make the place ready while I am gone. Lily, clean the gym from top to bottom, I want it to be absolutely spotless when I return."

"Yes mistress!" Lily said loyally, bowing to the floor.

"Violet, release all the Pokemon from their Pokeballs, feed them, clean them, and inform them of how things have changed around here and what it will mean for them," Misty commanded.

"E-even Gyarados?" whimpered Violet.

"Yes, even Gyarados," Misty said, her smile slightly cruel.

Violet mewled, but bowed. "Yes Mistress. I suppose I deserve it."

"You do indeed. And Daisy…I want you to entertain Tracey while I am gone. Make him comfortable, and fulfill all his desires, and I mean all of them, do you understand?" Misty told her last servant.

Daisy glanced at Tracey, ran her eyes up and down his form. Then she licked her lips almost hungrily and bowed, causing Tracey to flush. "Yes, Mistress. I understand."

Misty nodded. "Very well. I shall return shortly. Get to work, all of you."

"Yes Mistress!" the three servants called out as Misty vanished in a cloud of mist, and Tracey nearly echoed them in gratitude. Lily and Violet scurried back inside to do their assigned tasks, while Daisy rose to her feet, sauntered over to Tracey, and wrapped herself around him. She rubbed his cheek with her nose, purring him and causing him to turn bright red.

"It seems that I am all yours. What is your bidding, my master?" she whispered into his ear.

Tracey blinked, almost unable to believe this was happening. It was practically too good to be true. He licked his lips in anticipation. "Would you mind modeling for a picture?"

Elsewhere.

"Awww, they're so cute together, aren't they?" Mew commented, referring to Tracey sketching the posing Daisy.

"Bah, she's only paying attention to him because her mistress told her to," Mewtwo said disparagingly. "She'd never pay attention to him otherwise. She even broke up with him a while ago when they were dating, didn't she?"

Mew shrugged. "Maybe she's changed her mind now that she's a kitty-cat."

"Speaking of which, I'm surprised you approve of Misty changing them against their will into her slaves. I thought you were in support of free will," Mewtwo pointed out.

"I am. But they really are better off this way. Before they were basically vacuous wastes of space and flesh, now at least they'll be useful and productive," Mew said.

"I thought the blonde one had been getting a little better than that," Mewtwo said.

Mew giggled. "She has been. Why do you think Misty paired her up with Tracey rather than forcing her to do menial labor?"

Mewtwo's eyes widened as realization dawned on him. "Ahhh. I see. Very devious."

"We cats tend to be." Then Mew threw a piece of popcorn at him.

"What was that for?" Mewtwo complained.

Mew chuckled. "I felt like it."

…

Somewhere in the Sinnoh region.

We join our heroes Ash, Brock, Dawn and Pikachu as they continue down the road to becoming Pokemon masters/breeders/coordinators! Wait, where are they, the road's empty...

"Hey, we're down here!"

"Pikapika!"

Oh, there they are, at the bottom of that pit which abruptly opened up beneath them in the middle of the road.

"Where'd this hole come from?" Dawn, a pretty young girl with blue eyes, long dark blue hair hanging down her back with two tufts curling up from the back and framing her face, wearing a white cap with a pink Pokeball design on it. A reddish-pink scarf was wrapped around her neck, and she wore a black sleeveless top with a pink skirt at the bottom, showing off a lot of leg. She had high pink boots and black socks covering her feet asked, rubbing her head and sitting at the bottom of the pit.

"It just opened up outta nowhere," said Ash, stretching his back as he stood up.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say this looked a lot like the kind of pitfalls Team Rocket used to dig," Brock commented, looking around the pit and examining the walls. "But they haven't used that trick in a while, so maybe they finally grew out of it."

"Uh, Brock? This is Team Rocket you're talking about," pointed out Ash. "If they haven't stopped trying to catch Pikachu in the.what, five years?... Since we first ran into them, what makes you think they'd stop using something like a pitfall just because it was impractical and didn't really do much?"

Brock sweatdropped. "Good point."

As if on cue, a maniacal and stupid-sounding laugh could be heard from the top of the pit, causing the three trainers to groan and Pikachu to sigh in exasperation. "Listen, is that a twerp's voice I hear?" asked Jessie, a hideous woman with delusions of beauty and rather long and ugly red hair.

"It's whining to me, loud and clear," said her partner James, a rather effeminate man with blue hair and green eyes.

"Floating on the winds!"

"Past the stars!"

"In your ear!" added Meowth, the Scratchcat Pokemon.

"Bringing chaos at a breakneck pace!"

"Dashing hope, putting fear in its place!"

"A rose by any other name's just as sweet!"

"When everything's worse, our work is complete!"

"Jessie!"

"And it's James!"

"Meowth! Now that's a name!"

"Putting the do-gooders in their place!"

"Team Rocket!"

"We're in your face!"

"Wobbuffet!" said the blue blob-like Wobbuffet, popping out of its Pokeball.

"Mime mime!" said James' Mime Jr., imitating Wobbuffet.

"Done yet?" asked a bored Ash. Pikachu yawned.

"This is really getting old," said Dawn with a sigh.

Brock snorted. "You've only been with us a couple of months and are thinking that?! Wait'll you listen to them do this practically every day for years, then you can say it's getting old!"

"Pi Pikachu," Pikachu agreed with a nod.

"Hey, we are not getting old!" Jessie shrieked. "I'm just as pretty and youthful as I've always been!"

"In other words, not at all," Meowth muttered under his breath, causing James to snicker and Jessie to pound them both.

"Anyway, today's the day we're finally going to catch Pikachu!" Jessie said triumphantly.

"You say that every day," Dawn pointed out.

"Yes, well, this day's the real one!" Jessie said stubbornly. "James, use the extendable grabber claw thing!"

"Right!" James said. He paused. "Um, we don't have one."

Jessie blinked. "Wait, what? What do you mean we don't have one?"

"Um, Meowth broke it trying to grab apples from a tree in the forest... And instead caught a Spearow... Who then called all its friends and brought down unholy feathery vengeance upon us," said James. "I tell you, being pecked by several dozen rabid birds hurts like Hell."

"Hey, you said you wouldn't tell!" Meowth snapped.

"Well, she asked," James pointed out. "What was I supposed to tell her?!"

"You coulda lied and said that you sat on it and broke it or something like that, you didn't have to bring me into it!" Meowth retorted.

"No way, then she'd hit me instead of you!" James argued.

"I'm going to hit both of you right now if you don't shut up!" Jessie snapped. "Now, since both of you idiots went and broke our grabber claw, how do you propose we get Pikachu without getting electrified?"

"You could come down here and grab him," suggested Ash with a straight face. Brock and Dawn tried not to laugh, and Pikachu did his best to look innocent and not cackle evilly.

"Say, that's a great idea!" said James, starting to pull himself down the edge of the pit.

"What are you doing, you idiot?!" Jessie screamed, pulling him back up. "If you go down there, you'll get electrified!"

"Oh, right," James said, sweatdropping. "Well, then, let's send Meowth down!"

"What?! Why me?!" Meowth yelled.

"Better you than me," James said, resulting in Meowth slashing his face with his claws.

As the trio began to bicker about how they were going to get Pikachu out of the pit, and the heroes sighed and leaned back against the pit walls, waiting for the imbeciles to work something out so they could get out of there, a cloud of mist formed up on the road and dissipated, revealing Misty. She blinked and looked around. "Hmm? That's odd, I thought Ash would be somewhere around." She stopped, noticing Team Rocket and the nearby hole in the ground.

"Oh. Never mind." She walked over to the three idiots and cleared her throat. "Ahem. Excuse me?"

"What, we're in the middle of a very important-yaaaahhh!" Jessie cried in alarm as she saw the clearly inhuman figure standing before her. "What-what the heck is that?!"

"Meowth, what sort of Pokemon is that?" James asked Meowth.

Misty's eye twitched. "You think I'm a Pokemon?!"

"Well, of course you are, you're clearly not human," Jessie said arrogantly. "Now Meowth, what is that?"

"Uhhh." Meowth scratched his head as he stared at Misty, who gave him an encouraging look. Something told him he should know her. Something deep down inside of him said that this was possibly the most important person in the world, someone so great and magnificent that his very genes were encoded with obedience towards her and he should be groveling and paying homage and apologizing for getting in her way and doing so many bad things. Unfortunately, Meowth ignored that part of himself, as usual, and shrugged. "No clue." Misty facefaulted.

"Well, let's catch it and give it to the Boss!" James said eagerly. "He'd love it!"

"Uh, the Boss already has a cat," Jessie pointed out.

"Yeah, me!" Meowth said proudly.

"I was talking about his Persian," Jessie said, causing Meowth to facefault.

"Well, maybe the Boss wants his Persian to have kittens, and needs a Pokemon of good breeding to mate with," James said. "As a born-and-bred blueblood, I can tell at a glance that thing comes from very good breeding, whatever it is."

"Ooh, can I see?" Brock asked from down in the pit. "As an aspiring Pokemon breeder, I could probably tell you that sort of thing!"

Misty's eye twitched. ".I don't believe this. You all think I'm just another Pokemon to be captured and given to your boss, and someone who should be all rights know me at first sight is either a complete moron or in total denial. I'm seriously considering killing you idiots right now."

"Aha, but not before we kill-er, capture you first!" Jessie said triumphantly, pulling out a spare Pokeball. "Pokeball, go!" She hurled it at Misty's face.

Misty just glared at it. The Pokeball froze in midair and exploded. The trio's faces paled. "Oh crap," James said, wetting himself.

What happened to the fools from Team Rocket next was too horrible to be described, and from the awful gut-wrenching sounds they could hear from the bottom of the pit, the heroes found themselves very glad they couldn't see what was going on at that moment. (Although Pikachu seemed to be enjoying the sounds of anguish a little too much. That was probably to be expected, though, considering how much suffering those three idiot thieves had put him through over the last several years.) Fortunately, after about five minutes of screaming, yowling, and rather sickening sounds of bodily harm, there was an explosion followed by the usual, "We're blasting off agaaaaaiiiiin!" followed by a 'ting' sound, allowing the heroes to sigh in relief at the thought that Team Rocket would be back another day. This would be the first time they were ever thankful of that, interestingly enough.

"Okay, coast is clear!" Misty yelled down into the pit.

"Um, you're not going to hurt us, are you?" Dawn asked timidly.

Misty laughed. "No, of course not, I came here to save you guys!"

Ash blinked. "Hey, that voice sounds familiar. You don't suppose it's."

Brock grinned. "Well, let's go up there and find out!"

They quickly started climbing up the walls of the pit. As they did so, Pikachu wondered why he could still smell cat even though Meowth was gone. As Ash tried to lever himself over the edge of the pit, Misty offered him a hand to help him get out. "Oh, thanks Misty-" He paused, dumbfounded, staring in disbelief as she pulled him out. "Misty?!"

"My beloved," she said, staring deep into his eyes. "I have found you at last."

Ash blinked. ".Uh?"

"Pipi Pikachu," Pikachu moaned. As if life wasn't complicated enough already.

"WOW!" Brock said, eyes turning to hearts as he saw Misty, clearly not recognizing her due to her changed appearance. He rushed over and took her by the hand, shoving Ash out of the way in the process. "Normally, I'm not into bestiality, but in this case I think I'll make an exception! Where have you been all my life?"

Misty's eye twitched. Before she could scratch his eyes out (if he had any), Brock stiffened, his face turning blue. "Uhh.not again." he moaned as a small blue frog Pokemon with big orange cheeks dragged him away, croaking in amusement.

Misty blinked. "Well, glad to know somebody's taken that role with me out of the way."

"Guys, what's going on up." Dawn trailed off as she climbed out of the pit, staring at Misty in disbelief. "Uh."

"Um, Dawn, this is my friend Misty, the one I've been telling you about," Ash said awkwardly, glancing in confusion at Misty. "I.think."

Dawn blinked. "I thought she was a human.not, you know, some kind of cat-person thing."

"Yeah, so did I." muttered Ash, scratching the back of his head in confusion. Pikachu glanced at Misty anxiously, hoping she would remember what good friends they were and not feel like eating him.

Misty walked over to Dawn and took her hands into her own. "My dearest daughter Sekhmet.I am glad to find you well and good in this world."

Dawn blinked. ".Uh?"

Misty frowned. She glanced back and forth between Ash's look of confusion and Dawn's expression of incomprehension tinged with fear, then took in Pikachu's expression of anxiety and Brock's look of paralyzed lust. She realized she was being perhaps a little too forward and needed to take a step back. She took a deep breath and tried another tack. "Okay, I can see I'm not making any sense to either of you, so let's start over." She turned to Ash. "Ash, I found out this morning that I am the reincarnation of an ancient Pokegyptian goddess, and now that I have been awakened seek to reestablish my kingdom. You, Dawn, and one other person are reincarnations of the family I had back in my ancient kingdom. You possess the spirit of my husband and soulmate, the mighty and fierce Leono. You, Dawn, house the soul of my dearest daughter, Sekhmet the Lightbringer. Now that I have retaken my rightful place as a deity, I wish to help the rest of my family ascend to godhood so that we may be a family once again."

Ash and Dawn blinked. They glanced at each other. Pikachu cocked an eyebrow. Misty frowned. "What? It's not that hard to believe, is it? How else would you explain why I look like this?!"

"Oh, i-it's not that," Ash said quickly.

"Yeah, it's not like we don't believe you, it's just, um.are you sure you got the right people?" Dawn said. "I mean, I can't be your daughter, can I? I already have a mother!"

"The mother of your flesh, not of your soul," Misty explained. "She is as much your mother as I am."

Dawn stared incredulously at the cat creature. ".What the heck is that supposed to mean?!"

"And are you sure I'm really your, you know husband?" Ash asked awkwardly. "Because, well, I'm not sure I'm ready for that level of commitment. I mean, not that I wouldn't want to get married some day, I guess, it's just that I'm not sure I want to do it now, I was sort of planning on finishing the Sinnoh League and becoming a Pokemon Master first, and then taking a few years to become an even better trainer and grow up a little more before I even think of getting into a real relationship. Um, is that a problem?"

Misty's eye twitched. "Yes," she snarled. "It is. I haven't spent the last five thousand years slumbering in mortal form after mortal form just to run into you again and find out you want to wait a few more years before getting into a serious relationship, a relationship which never technically ended, our deaths notwithstanding."

"Oh." Ash looked down and shuffled his feet a little. "Um, I'm sorry?"

Misty growled loudly, her hair standing up and causing Ash to yelp and Pikachu to hop off his shoulder and hide behind his trainer's legs. "Oh, just kiss me already, you idiot."

Ash blinked. "Huh? Wait a min-" He was cut off as Misty grabbed him by the front of his shirt, pulled him close, and forcibly kissed him, hard, right on the mouth. Ash's eyes widened in amazement.and then they lost focus and fell closed as he began kissing her back. There was even some tongue action, which felt kind of weird since Misty's tongue was a bit bigger and flatter than his, due to its being like a cat's.

Dawn's jaw dropped.

"Why can't anyone kiss me like that?!" Brock complained, trying to get some feeling back into his limbs.

"Pikapi pipi Pikachu," Pikachu said, shaking his head in amusement. It's about darn time!

As the kiss between Ash and Misty deepened, the boy started glowing brilliantly, much to the surprise of those who were watching. Their eyes widened with awe as Ash's form grew brighter and started to grow, even while still maintaining his kiss with Misty, his figure changing to become less like that of a human's and more like something else altogether, something rather leonine in build. Finally, Misty pulled back from the kiss and opened her eyes, looking adoringly up at Ash, who was now a few inches taller than she was. "My dearest Leono.husband, soulmate, and consort.at last, you have returned."

Ash had gone from being a regular human Pokemon trainer to some kind of half-human half-Pokemon creature, looking a lot like a humanoid Luxray. His skin was covered mostly in black fur, with a light blue face, ears, waist, and legs, giving him a rather dark appearance. A long tail with a four-pointed yellow star at the tip grew from his rear. The front of his arms was black, while the underside was blue with three yellow rings per limb. His face looked very fierce and much like that of a lion's, with a small red nose protruding outwards from his face, a mouth full of fangs, and slanted gold eyes with brown irises which granted him the power of X-ray vision. His large round blue ears stuck out from the side of his head, framing his face along with the long bushy black mane spreading outward from the back of his head. His body was heavily toned and extremely muscular, and both Dawn and Misty couldn't help running their eyes up and down his handsome form, drinking in his masculine physique, for he was truly a god. Brock looked on with pure envy, wishing his body was even half as ripped as Ash's. It didn't help that the former human didn't wear much in the way of clothes, either. A white kilt with gold thread depicting wild Luxray and Persians hunting down their prey hung down from his waist. His pawed feet were in sandals just the right shape and size for him. Enormous gold bracers with elaborate hieroglyphics covered his forearms and knuckles. A white cape with a rampant Luxray in gold extended down his back to the ground, fastened to ceremonial armor covering his shoulders and upper body, with several large jewels in the shapes of scarabs, cat's eyes, and sun disks set into the front. The edges of his ears were pierced by several large gold rings. His hat had been transformed into a red and black striped pharaonic headdress going down both sides of his face with a large blue Pokeball emblem on the top above his forehead, with a stylized Pidgeot and Arbok head poking out right underneath it. Ash knelt before Misty, took her hand, and bowed his head in respect. "Beloved Bast.wife and Queen.I am honored to be your mate once again." His voice was much deeper and had a rich tone to it, but it was still Ash.

Dawn fell to her knees in disbelief and horror. Brock shook his head incredulously. "No way.if she kissed me, would I look nearly as good as that?!"

"It is so good to see you again," Misty said, hugging Ash as he rose to his feet. "I have waited for so long."

"As have I," agreed Ash, returning the hug. "But now we are together again.and soon, our family shall be reunited once more."

Great, Pikachu thought to himself, slowly creeping away and trying not to make any loud noises. That's wonderful. I'm really happy for the both of you, honestly I am. Now, I'm just going to get out of here before your biological instincts kick in and compel you to eat me.

"Where are you going, Pikachu?" Ash asked, causing Pikachu to stiffen and stop in his tracks.

Very tense, and trying as hard as he could not to smell like fear (since he was sure that Ash would be able to detect something like that now), Pikachu slowly turned around and swallowed hard, seeing that Ash's face was only inches away from his own. He had knelt down to see Pikachu better, and as a result gave the electric mouse a very good look at his large fangs. Pikachu tried not to imagine them digging into his flesh. "Pi Pikachu chapi pika kachu chupi," he said nervously. Oh, nowhere, what made you think I was going someplace?

Ash blinked, puzzled. Then he frowned, looking discomfited. "Pikachu.are you afraid of me?"

Pikachu laughed nervously. "Cha." A little.

Ash didn't look happy with this response. "Why?"

Well, Pikachu explained. It might have something to do with you being a big scary predatory cat. The same kind of big scary predatory cat that tends to eat little rodents like me for breakfast.

"Oh." To Pikachu's surprise, Ash started laughing. "Pikachu, you don't need to be scared of me! You're my best friend, practically my brother, I'd never eat you!"

Pikachu's shoulders slumped in relief. "Pi Pikachu?" You wouldn't?

"Of course not! I was going to ask you to come live with us; you're a part of the family too, after all!" Ash said firmly.

Pikachu sighed gratefully, his tension fading away. "Pi Pikapi, pipi Pikachu." Thank you, Ash. I'd be honored to come live with you. "Pika pika cha pichu chachu." So long as nobody tries to eat me, of course.

"Don't worry," Ash said. "Nobody's going to eat you while I'm around!" He extended an arm, and Pikachu cried out happily and eagerly ran up it, taking his usual place on Ash's shoulder. The armor felt a bit weird, but he was sure he'd get used to sitting on it eventually.

Misty sighed happily, watching the big burly Luxray-ish Ash being so gentle and caring with Pikachu. "Is it any wonder I fell in love with him?" She turned to Dawn, who glanced up at her in trepidation. "And now, my daughter, it's your turn."

"W-w-wait!" Dawn protested, jumping to her feet and stepping back. "I-I can't! I can't be your daughter! Like I told you, I already have a mom, I can't just dump her for another, even if you are supposed to be the reincarnation of the one I had thousands of years ago!"

"She will not stop being your mother even if you become my daughter again. I was even going to suggest that she come and stay with us in our palace, she's part of the family too, now."

"Oh, could my mom stay too?" Ash asked. "None of our cooks back in Pokegypt make food as well as she does! Plus, I need someone to do my laundry."

Misty rolled her eyes. "Ash, we have servants for that. And that's not exactly a very nice thing to make your mother do."

Ash fidgeted, looking embarrassed. "Oh. Sorry. Um, can she still stay with us?"

Misty nodded. "Of course. But as the mother of my royal husband, she need not do servant's work. Not unless she wants to, of course. She'll need some way to keep busy.and not pry into our love lives! That's private information!" She turned back to Dawn. "Would letting your mother stay make you feel better about this, darling?"

"Well, a little, but.no!" Dawn cried, panicking and on the verge of tears. "I mean, you're asking me to give up everything here! My hopes, my dreams, hell, my very humanity! How am I supposed to just let all of that go?! I like being me! I like being Dawn! I don't want to be this.this Sekhmet, whoever she is! I don't know her at all!"

Misty put her hands on Dawn's cheeks to keep her head from shaking, forcing the girl to look her directly in the eye. "Dawn! Calm down. Listen to me. You know Sekhmet as well as you know yourself, for she is you. She is your truest, innermost self, embodying your fullest potential and all of your deepest and most heartfelt longings and desires. You sacrifice nothing in becoming her.for she is all that you are, and more. She is the Lightbringer who instills hope in the hearts of the people of the world. She is my firstborn and beloved daughter, born from the love of your father and I. She is the goddess Sekhmet. And she is you, Dawn. You are she and she is you. Let go of your fears, discard the anxieties that hold you back, and just relax.so that you may become who you were always fated to be."

Misty waited for a moment, staring unblinkingly into Dawn's eyes, until the girl's breathing and heart rate slowed and she no longer reeked of fear. Then, she bent close and breathed divine wind into Dawn's mouth, their lips only millimeters apart. From Brock's angle, it looked as if the two were kissing, and he found himself aroused at the possibility of some girl-on-girl action. Ash just crossed his arms and waited with Pikachu for his daughter to be reborn.

Misty let go of Dawn and stepped back as the girl gasped, her eyes rolling back in her head. Her body trembled and shivered, as if from extreme cold. And then she began to glow, far more brilliantly than Ash had when he had transformed, and it seemed as if a ray of sunlight shone down from above to illuminate her. This was not because she was more powerful than her parents, though she might be one day, rather it was her element rejoicing in her return, for she was the Lightbringer and the light was her dominion.

As the glow around Dawn faded to reveal her new form, the sunbeam remained, creating an otherworldly radiance about her. She had become a humanoid shiny Luxio, which made some sense since her father was a Luxray. Her body had matured and grown taller in the transformation, so she now looked several years older, in her late teens, and rather shapely at that. (Brock noticed, sad to say.) She wore beautiful white robes with gold trim that seemed to luminesce on their own and did nothing to conceal her lovely features. Her hands and feet were golden, and her body was covered in blue fur on top and black on the bottom. She wore sandals on her feet suited for her feline paws. A white kilt made from some kind of strange cloth that was able to luminesce all by itself was wrapped around her waist and upper legs, making her glow even brighter. Similar radiant material was used to create a white top which covered her shoulders and chest, but revealed her belly and the bottom of her breasts. A long black tail ending in a golden four-pointed star stuck out from the back of her kilt, the star shining almost like a miniature sun. Four gold bands engraved with hieroglyphs were wrapped around her wrists, two per arm, and she had a few rings on her fingers. Several chains bearing ankhs, scarabs, and other mystical amulets hung from her neck. Her blue hair had darkened to a blackish-blue and hung down her back and over her shoulders. Two tufts stuck out to the sides on either side of her head, framing her gold-furred face, small red nose, and pretty blue eyes. A small golden circlet ran around her head, just above her large yellow ears, with a small Arbok rising from the front protectively. She held a long wooden staff in her right hand, with numerous glowing symbols carved into it.

She let out a deep breath, examining her new, or rather old, body. "I.I am reborn," she whispered. She looked up at Ash and Misty, tears welling up in her eyes. "Mother.Father.thank you so much! How I have longed for this day!"

"As have I," said Misty demurely, unashamed to find herself crying as well. She spread her arms wide. "Come to your mother, my little Sekhmet. It has been far, far too long." With a sob of joy, Dawn ran over and embraced her mother, and Misty closed her arms around the new goddess's back, and Ash wrapped his arms around both of them in a heartwarming family hug. Pikachu chirped happily, glad he could partake in such a blessed reunion.

"Uh, hello?" Brock spoke up, ruining the moment. "Um, I'm still here. You kind of forgot about me for a minute there." The trio separated, exchanging embarrassed glances and not quite meeting Brock's gaze. (Then again, it was hard to tell if he had one, since he had no visible eyes.) "Yeah. So. Since I'm pretty sure I'm not the reincarnation of some ancient Pokegyptian deity.what's to become of me?" There was an unhappy look on his face. He did not like the thought that he might be discarded, after all the adventures and hard times he had been through with his friends over the years, just because he did not share the same great destiny or divinity as they.

"You're more than welcome to come with us, if you like," Misty offered.

"Yeah, we need to someone to make food for us," Ash said, causing Dawn to elbow him. "Ow! What?!"

Brock frowned in thought. "Would I have to be changed into a cat-thing like you guys?"

"Only if you want to be changed," Misty said.

"Hmm." Brock rubbed his chin. He did in fact want to be changed, if it meant looking anywhere near as buff as Ash did. Still, he wasn't sure if it was worth becoming a servant to gods rather than pursuing his dreams as a Pokemon breeder.

Noticing his indecision, Dawn said, "There'll be pretty women. Lots of them."

"I'm in!" Brock said eagerly. Pikachu and Misty rolled their eyes, not surprised that that had worked. "And I think I'd like to be changed, too! Hit me! Um, not literally, I mean," he said quickly, eyeing Misty's sharp claws, Ash's muscles, and Dawn's staff anxiously.

"Very well." Misty walked towards Brock. He tensed with anticipation, sweating and practically quivering with glee as she came very close to him and leaned towards his face, assuming she was about to kiss him. Dawn grimaced in disgust, and Ash glared at Brock as if to warn him not to think such lecherous thoughts about his wife, but it was hard not to when the woman in question was so gorgeous. (If not quite human.)

He was understandably disappointed when, instead of kissing him, she just breathed into his open mouth. It was still kind of arousing, but not really what he had hoped for, though it did cause his body to tingle in a strange way. That tingling increased as his body began to glow, and he found himself growing bigger and bigger.

Until the light faded and he found he was very tall, so high up that his head brushed some of the branches of the trees behind him. Why, he even towered over Ash, who had gotten pretty big after transforming into a god. "Wow, this is awesome!" he shouted, rejoicing in how deep, booming, and manly his voice sounded. It was then he noticed that Dawn was trying very hard not to laugh, Ash had a smile on his face, Misty looked somewhat embarrassed, and Pikachu had fallen off Ash's shoulder and was rolling on the ground laughing. Brock frowned, puzzled. "What's so funny? And why do I feel hungry all of a sudden?"

"Ah.that might be because." Misty started.

"You're a Snorlax," Ash said, causing Dawn to finally burst into laughter.

Brock looked down at himself in horror. "Whaaaaaat?!" Much to his dismay, he found that he was indeed a Snorlax, with an enormous tan belly, dark blue fur, large clawed feet with practically no legs, and thick arms. He was wearing a belt made of several pieces of rope braided together with a couple of large square pieces of brightly colored cloth hanging down between his legs on his front and back. His Pokeballs were hanging from the belt as well. He was also wearing a white khafiya on his head with holes in it for his two large and vaguely feline ears to poke out of. "What-how--why the hell am I a Snorlax?! I wanted to be buff and handsome, like Ash!"

Ash blinked. "You did?"

"Oh," said Misty. "You should have specified that, then."

Brock grimaced. "I.sort of assumed I'd just become a big and handsome cat guy automatically, like you guys."

Dawn shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. We look so attractive because we're gods, and therefore are supposed to be more beautiful and physically perfect than regular mortals. Unlike in most TF stories, you don't just become more physically attractive by being transformed into a Pokemon or human/Pokemon hybrid. When magic is involved, as it usually is, the form taken often depends on the will of the caster. If you had specified you wanted to be burly and handsome, my mother might have made you that way, but since you didn't."

"I got turned into this," Brock said unhappily. "Why am I a Snorlax, anyway? I thought they were bears!"

"You have cat ears," Ash pointed out.

Snorlax sweatdropped. "And that's enough for a cat goddess to turn me into one?!"

"Apparently," Misty said sadly. "I'm really sorry, Brock. I only made a Snorlax because." She glared at Ash, causing him to wince. "Someone mentioned somebody to cook for us, which naturally made me think of a Snorlax, since their sometimes picky eating despite having the ability to devour just about anything allows some of them to be trained as world-class chefs, although not all their dishes are fit for human.or other sighed. "I don't suppose you can turn me into something else?"

Misty shook her head. "Your form's been set, I can't change you again. I'm afraid you'll be stuck like this."

Brock grimaced, but tried to find the bright side of his situation. "Well.some ladies like their men big, don't they?" he said, cheering up immediately at the thought. "And they also love a man who can cook his own meals.plus, more of Snorlax's body mass is muscle than fat, so it's not like I'm a flabby, repulsive kind of guy! And now that my skin's so thick, and my ears are too high up for anyone to reach, I bet not even Croagunk can stop me from hitting on women now!"

Taking his cue, Croagunk popped out of his Pokeball and delivered a precisely pinpointed Poison Jab to a specific pressure point on Brock's gut. His face turned blue and he toppled over backwards, causing the ground to shake as he hit the floor. "Then again.I could be wrong." Croagunk croaked to himself in amusement. Pikachu laughed even harder.

"Well, now that that's taken care of," Misty said brightly. "Our family is almost complete. I just need to go retrieve our son and Dawn's brother, Ta-Hotep, and then we may rebuild our kingdom."

"I wonder what mortal form he has taken in this world?" Dawn wondered. "It has been so long since I've last seen him.I can barely even remember what he looks like!"

"Do you know where he is, Misty?" Ash asked his wife.

She nodded, her expression grave. "I do. However.this is something I wish to do on my own. I will send you all to where our new palace shall be erected, and collect Ta-Hotep by myself."

Her family looked alarmed like this. "What? Why can't we go with you?" asked Ash with a frown.

"Yes, I want to see my brother!" Dawn agreed.

"Pi Kapichu Pika Pikachu?" Pikachu asked. Is something the matter?

"If any of you came along, you would only get in the way," Misty said. "This is something better left to one person, which is why I have to do this.alone." She summoned her mist before they could argue, causing clouds to form around Ash, Dawn, and Brock. "I'll see you at home soon.hopefully with Ta-Hotep."

"Wait.what do you mean, hopefully?!" asked an alarmed Dawn.

"Pika!" Stop! Cried Pikachu.

"Misty!" Ash yelled.

"Can somebody help me up, please?" Brock groaned.

And then they were all gone, leaving Misty to herself. She exhaled, an unhappy look on her face. "And now comes the hardest task of all."

...
"That was so sweet!" Mew gushed, hugging herself happily. "I just love reunions between loved ones! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! More than usual, anyway."

"So, my old friend Ash Ketchum is the reincarnation of an ancient god." mused Mewtwo, ignoring his companion's comments. "Hmm, I knew there was something different about him."

"He's so dreamy! Isn't he?" Mew asked him, blue eyes sparkling.

Mewtwo glowered and glanced at his arms, which were as bony and thin as ever. He flexed one, trying to make a muscle. "Well, I suppose he's somewhat well-built," he said grudgingly. "It doesn't look like his intellect has increased very much, though."

"Well, you can't have everything," Mew commented wisely.

Mewtwo raised an eyebrow. "Misty seems to have it all. Very good looks, a keen mind, a loving family and husband, divinity and immortality, exceptional power and dominion over feline Pokemon."

"Yeah, but she snores. Really loudly," Mew said matter-of-fact.

Mewtwo blinked. "Does she now?"

Mew nodded. "Yeah, and she can't cook worth shoot. Why do you think they're keeping Brock around?"

"Ah." Mewtwo rubbed his chin for a moment. "Then.was the Snorlax thing really an accident, or.?"

Mew laughed. "Maybe yes, maybe no. Let's just say some things are not meant to reproduce."

Mewtwo raised an eyebrow. "Coming from the progenitor of all life, that's.somewhat disturbing." Mew threw popcorn at him. "Will you stop doing that?"

"No."

Mewtwo sighed and sat back in his chair. "You are so immature." Mew stuck her tongue out at him to prove his point.
...

Norman, the handsome dark-haired Gym Leader of Petalburg City, sauntered into the living room where his lovely wife Caroline was lounging on the couch, carrying a bottle of champagne in one hand and two wineglasses in the other, a broad smile on his face. "Well, look what the Vigoroth dragged in," she said seductively, shifting in her seat to make room for her husband, showing off quite a bit of leg in the process.

Norman plopped down beside Caroline, set the glasses down on the coffee table before them, uncorked the champagne, and poured it into the glasses. "Max is in bed, and May's outside practicing with her Pokemon-"

"The poor thing," Caroline said sadly, shaking her head. "She did so poorly in that one contest in Johto that she came home in tears, and has been trying to rebuild her confidence in her coordinating skill ever since!"

"So we have the house to ourselves," Norman finished, trying to steer her back on subject. Not that he wasn't sympathetic for his daughter's plight, but he had different things on his mind at the moment. He handed Caroline one of the glasses and took the other to himself. "Meaning we can do whatever we want, Mrs. Maple.as long as it doesn't wake Max, that is." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and she laughed. "Happy anniversary, honey."

"Happy anniversary, dear." They clinked wine glasses, then leaned in for a kiss.

When suddenly there was a knock on the door, breaking the mood. Norman grimaced and gave an apologetic look to his wife. "Just a sec, I'll get that." He put his glass down and quickly went into the front hall, pulling open the door just as whoever was outside started knocking again. "I'm sorry, but we don't want any-" He started, only to stop dead mid-sentence when he found himself staring into the blue slitted eyes of Misty, reincarnation of Bast.

"Hello, Norman," the cat-woman said, offering a reluctant grin. "Do you have a moment?"

She explained everything to them, sitting across the kitchen table from them as Caroline sipped her tea anxiously and Norman listened with an unreadable expression on his face. She told them how she was the reincarnation of a goddess from ancient Pokegypt, and how she and her family had been killed thousands of years ago only to be reborn in the present age as human trainers. She explained to them how she had been awakened to her true divine form, and was now seeking out the rest of her family so that she could awaken them as well so they could reestablish their utopian kingdom. She even demonstrated a number of her powers to squelch any skepticism and prove her divinity.

"I can understand why you would want to find your family so badly, so that they could rejoin you," Norman said after a moment. "However, that still doesn't explain what you're doing here."

Misty sighed. She had known this moment would come, and had not been looking forward to it. "I have already found and awakened my husband and daughter. The only member of my family still unaccounted for is my son, Ta-Hotep. My son." She gave the two humans a hard look. "Who happens to have been reborn as your son, Max."

They started at this, naturally. "Th-there must be some mistake!" Caroline protested. "Our son is a wonderful boy, but he's certainly not.not a god, or anything like that!"

"What makes you so certain it's our son, and not some other boy, who is the reincarnation of your child?" asked Norman with a frown.

"As a great deity, I am capable of perceiving the threads of destiny," Misty explained. "They are what guided me to the souls of my husband and daughter, bound in mortal flesh. Those same threads are what took me here and told me that Max is indeed the reincarnation of my son, Ta-Hotep."

"Well, how do you know you perceived these threads correctly?!" Caroline asked angrily, standing up from her seat, nearly spilling her tea all over the table in the process.

Norman put a calming hand on her arm and gently pushed her back into her chair. "I would like to know the same thing," he said, though less emotionally as his wife. "How do you know?"

"Every living thing in this world is connected by strings of a sort, threads of fate and energy, linking all creation together. These threads resonate in specific ways, and those who can understand these resonances can learn great knowledge. Your son's thread resonates with intensity beyond that of most mortals, an intensity that can only mean he is a god hidden in human form. What's more, I know the scent of his soul from long ago, and it permeates this household, banishing any doubt from my mind that he is the one I seek," Misty explained.

"And now that you've found him, what do you intend to do?" Norman asked.

"I intend to banish the illusion that is his human form so that he may become a god once more," Misty told them, the pain on their faces cutting deeply into her heart. "I will then take him back home to rejoin his family so we may be whole once more."

"You can't have him!" Caroline shrieked, standing up again and really knocking over her teacup this time. "You can't have my baby! I don't care if he is your son from thousands of years ago, he's our son now, and you have no right to take him!!!"

This caused Misty's hair to rise a little. "I have every right," she growled. "He is as much my son as he is yours. He has just as much right to know me and his other family as he does to know this one. I am his mother too, and I love him just as much as you do, and only want the best for him, just like you. And that's why I have to take him away."

She knew almost at once that was the wrong thing to say. Caroline glared at her with sheer hate, while Norman's expression darkened. "You don't think we can give him the best life possible?"

Misty took a deep breath and started again, making sure to choose her words with care. "I apologize. I did not mean to imply that you were bad parents or that Max would be better off with me than you. Let me explain what I mean.

"I have foreseen that if I leave Max in your custody, there is a good chance that he will grow up to become a great trainer. He might even become a Pokemon master. There's a pretty good chance that he may save the world, or help someone else to save it, and be revered by people everywhere. And then, after living for an indeterminate number of years, possibly marrying, possibly fathering children, he will die. He will be buried in the ground, where, over a period of many years, his flesh will atrophy and rot and be devoured by worms until he is nothing more than a withered old skeleton, and eventually not even that, since the mortals of this day and age no longer use the mummification technique we Pokegyptians mastered centuries ago. That's assuming there's a corpse to be found, and he isn't killed and eaten by Pokemon out in the wild, or his body isn't destroyed in one of the hundreds of possible ways. Regardless, he will eventually die, maybe decades from now, or maybe even next week. That is the price of mortality."

The humans didn't take this very well. Caroline looked rather sick, and Norman had gone pale, but there was a look of resigned acceptance on his face. Misty continued. "If I take Max from here and turn him into a god, his life will be radically different. He will live in a grand palace and have almost anything he desires while being doted on by his loving parents and servants. However, he will also be taught strictly on just about every subject matter that a future leader needs to know: history, geography, sociology, political sciences, mathematics, the humanities, science, magic, leadership, trust, warfare, religion, and whatever other knowledge and skills he will need to one day rule his own kingdom. And as a prince and god, he will rule, it is in his blood and destiny. He will became a great figure, a leader of both man and Pokemon. As a deity, he will be worshipped by hundreds, if not thousands, and have the power to answer prayers and spread joy all over the world. And, of course, he will be immortal, able to weather the centuries easily and continue living when many others would die, immune to frailty, age, and sickness. He can still die, but it will be less likely than it would if he remained mortal. I know as well as you do that every parent wants their child to live so that a piece of them shall always continue in the world, and by making Max immortal I will ensure that a part of you will remain on this Earth, for as long as he does.

"There is, however, a downside to this. Max's human body is still quite young, not even near puberty yet. As a result, due to his lack of physical maturity, if and when I help him awaken to godhood.all his memories of his time as Max will fail to be imprinted on his soul and his enhanced brain. He will forget having every known you, having ever been Max, having ever been your son. He will still be your son biologically, for a bit of your DNA will remain in him even after he has been transmuted into an immortal god, but he will never know that you were his parents. And.to spare him unnecessary confusion and pain.I intend to leave it that way, should I take him with me. You may visit him if you wish, but he must never know that you were ever his parents, for it might confuse or hurt him and even trigger a psychological breakdown. And that is something neither of us wants."

Misty sat back in her chair, examining Norman and Caroline and gauging their reaction to everything she had said. Caroline's face had gone white, and tears were running down her face. She looked at the table, unable to meet Misty's or her husband's eyes. Norman had also gone pale, but had crossed his arms over his chest and was chewing his lip in thought. Misty sighed. "And those are your options. I can leave, and your son will remain mortal and possibly do great things and die. Or, I can make him a god, but force him to forget everything he knew as a human child, including you. But he will do even greater things than he might have as a man, and live forever. Which of these fates will be your son's is now up to you. I leave it in your hands."

The two said nothing for a moment. Then, Caroline asked, "You said that he won't remember because he hasn't hit puberty yet. Well.wh-what if you waited until he'd matured that much, then changed him? If he wanted to be changed, I mean? Then he'd remember both his families, and everything would be all right!" There was a desperate look in her eyes. It broke Misty's heart to know she was going to be forced to shatter another mother's hopes.

"Before he died in his previous lifetime, my son had not yet reached puberty.or what passes for it, among we gods," she explained sadly. "If I were to wait until Max hit puberty as a mortal, then transformed him, he would be reverted back to his godling form, before divine adolescence. He would remember his life with you, but.his body wouldn't be able to handle going through puberty twice, especially since maturation for gods is more stressful and demanding than it is for mortals, due to the power levels involved. If he were to hit puberty, then be regressed into a godling, then hit puberty again, the strain would kill him. And there's no telling how long it will take for him to be reincarnated again, not until he dies, anyway, and the threads are reset."

"So, basically, it's either take Max now... or wait an unknown period of time, until he's reborn elsewhere, and you try again, with a different set of parents," Norman interpreted.

Misty nodded. "And so, the decision lies with you. What shall become of your son and mine? Will he be a mortal, or a god?" She waited a moment, not expecting either parent to have a response right away. She was right, they didn't. "If you are uncertain, would you like to ask Max his opinion on the matter? Since this concerns him most of all, he deserves a say in this."

"Absolutely not!" Caroline spluttered in alarm.

"I believe what my wife means," Norman said, laying a reassuring hand on Caroline, "Is that Max, while a clever boy, is.well, too young to make a decision like this. While he's a good boy and I trust him unquestioningly.this is something that could change his life forever. It may be cruel of me to say this, but I'm not sure this is something we can just let him decide for himself." Misty nodded. She was unsurprised by this. Norman sighed and looked down, drumming his fingers on the table. "This isn't an easy choice you've given us," he said after a moment. "We'll need time to-"

He was interrupted by the screen door only a few feet away opening up as May came in from the backyard, looking exhausted and soaked with sweat. Her Beautifly was sitting on her shoulder, wings and antenna drooping, while her Skitty and Eevee were clustered at her heels, uncharacteristically worn out for such usually energetic Pokemon. "Phew, that was a workout," she said, wiping some sweat from her brow. "Hey mom, do we have any lemon-" She trailed off when she saw her parents' grave expressions and the inhuman creature at the kitchen table. Her pupils shrank in fright. "Waaaaaahhhh!!"

Skitty instantly perked up and started 'nyaing' rapidly. Oh boy! The mistress is here! Yaaaayyyy! The kitten ran over and pawed eagerly at Misty's leg until the goddess reached down, picked her up, and put her in her lap. Skitty happily curled up in her lap and allowed Misty to stroke her, as the deity gave the stunned May an apologetic look.

One of May's Pokeballs popped open, and Munchlax materialized on the kitchen floor. He scratched his rear and glanced at Misty. "Munchlax." Oh, it's you. Disinterested, he walked over to the fridge, opened it, and started rummaging through it. "Munchlax munch munch Munchlax." I'm hungry. What's to eat? Misty sweatdropped.

May collapsed against the door behind her, staring at Misty in horror. "M-Mom? Dad?! What's going on?!"

"Ah." Norman glanced uncertainly at his wife, who stood up.

"May, dear..I think there's something we need to talk about." Caroline said soothingly, taking May's arm.

"Yes, it's.about your brother." Norman said, standing up as well. He glanced at Misty. "We need to talk to her about this, as Max's sister she has a right to know what's going on. Is that a problem?"

Misty shook her head. "Go right ahead." Norman and Caroline quickly led a dazed and confused May back outside, Eevee managing to follow them just before the door closed. That left Misty alone in the kitchen with Skitty, who was perfectly content to be petted by her divine mistress, and Munchlax, who was perfectly content devouring everything in the fridge. Misty dampened her extranormal senses and super-sensitive hearing, not wanting to listen to or empathically pick up on the no doubt heated and painful discussion-and argument-probably going on outside regarding Max's future. It was hard enough seeing the looks on Norman and Caroline's faces as she explained that she wanted to take their son away forever and destroy all his memories of them, she didn't want to hear their thoughts screaming inside her head as well.

Shifting Skitty from her lap to the crook of her arm, she stood up and walked over to the fridge, careful not to step on any of the messes and half-eaten piles of food scattered about Munchlax as he ravenously devoured anything he could get his hands on. Reaching into the fridge over the walking garbage can's head, she pulled out some milk, opened it up, and drank right from the carton, guzzling down two-thirds of its contents. She licked her lips when she was done, then lowered the carton to Skitty's level, allowing her to sip from the lip of the carton and share some of the same milk that her goddess had just drank from. Misty wasn't sure if Skitty knew this, but the little pink cat was radically elongating her lifespan by drinking from the same carton as her deity. She wasn't sure what effect it would have on any humans who might drink it later, so she gave the rest to Munchlax for disposal. He greedily consumed the milk, and the plastic bottle it came in, then went back to gnawing on some unidentifiable substance that May had probably created in another one of her failed attempts at cooking. Munchlax, naturally, was the only creature who could stomach such abominations.

Leaving the bottomless pit on legs to his feast, Misty walked back to the table, sat down, and resumed petting Skitty, blessing the kitten with increased intelligence, strength, vitality, and fortune in the process. She realized she could easily take this opportunity to spirit Max away right under his family's noses, but that wouldn't rest well with her. She was already going to have to live with enough guilt, taking Max from them and turning him into someone completely different, she didn't need to feel bad about outright stealing him too.

So she waited for Norman, Caroline and May to finish talking, her concentration drifting off so that time would seem to pass faster for her. And so the next half an hour went by pretty quickly, until the screen door opened and the trio came back inside, without May's Pokemon, which Misty could sense had been returned to their Pokeballs. They all looked tired and worn out; May's face was pale and a look of shock and disbelief filled her eyes, Caroline's hair was in disarray and her face was stained by tears, and Norman just looked haggard and many years older than he actually was. Sitting down across from Misty, Norman said, "We've made our decision."

"Okay," Misty said, pitting Skitty on the ground. The Pokemon was disappointed, but the goddess couldn't afford any distractions at this critical moment.

"You can take Max," Norman said after a moment. "On one condition. Well, two really. We want to be able to visit him anytime we want."

"Done," Misty said instantly.

Norman continued. "And second, we want you to take May with you."

Misty blinked in surprise. "I'm sorry?"

"I don't want to lose my brother," May whispered hoarsely, looking at the ground.

"What May means to say is that.even if he doesn't remember her, doesn't know who she is, she wants to stay with her brother," Norman translated. "I don't care what you have to do, just find some position for her in your palace that will let her keep a close eye on Max and allow her to tell us how he's doing."

"And she has to be able to come home whenever she wants!" Caroline said fiercely. "We don't.we don't want to lose our other child."

"Easily done," Misty said, her anxiety lessening somewhat. She allowed herself to feel a moment of joy that she would be able to see her son again, but only for a moment, she wasn't done with the negotiations just yet. "She can serve as my son's servant, playmate, and boon-companion. Not exactly a best friend, per se, he'd want children more his own age for that, but she'd be able to watch him and care for him and be with him when we cannot. Is this acceptable?"

Norman glanced at his daughter. "May?"

"I can do that," May said quietly.

"Then it's a deal," Norman said to Misty.

"Thank you very much," Misty said, bowing her head to the humans. "You have no idea how much I appreciate this."

"Just.just take good care of my son, please?" Caroline gasped, her voice rather raw. "And don't let anything bad happen to him or my daughter. They're.she's all we have, now."

"I swear on the river Nile that May will always be safe in my house as long as she stays true to her duty and to her charge," Misty promised, invoking one of the most powerful and binding oaths of the gods.

"And Max?" Caroline pressed.

Misty smiled faintly. "I am his mother, just as you are. As such, you should know that you need no binding oath from me, it is already a given that I would lay down my life for him." Caroline nodded, accepting this. Misty rose from her seat. "With your leave, I will go now and awaken my son. Unless you want one last moment with Max before he-" She cut herself off before she could finish her sentence and say, before he ceases to exist as you knew him?

Norman bit his lip and thought for a moment. "No," he said finally. "It.it would only hurt for us to wake him up, for him to be conscious when it happens, to be aware of.of being erased." He swallowed. "And I don't think I could bare going up there and just looking at him sleep without waking him up.it'll feel like he's dead already. It's probably better if we just.just leave it like this. So our last memory of him won't be tainted by.by watching him disappear. To spare him, and all of us, a little pain." Caroline burst into tears and turned away. May's eyes quivered. Misty could understand why they would do this. It was clear that all of them would be hurting from this for a very long time. They didn't need to add any more hurt to their already-heavy burden.

"Very well," Misty said. "If that is what you wish, then I shall go up to him alone." Norman was right, it was most definitely better this way. She turned to May. "Before I go up.I will need to change you so that you will be better able to serve and protect my son. To make you a little more like him. Is this all right with you?"

May trembled, understandably frightened at the prospect.but bravely nodded. "Yes," she said. "I'll.I'll do whatever it takes to help my brother." She hesitated. "I.I won't."

"Lose your memories? No, you shall lose none of them," Misty said. "Otherwise, you would no longer be your parents' daughter, and I do not wish to cause them any more pain." Caroline let out a sob at this, and Norman looked away, but neither said anything.

May swallowed and stood up straight. "Then.then I-I'm ready."

Misty smiled, touched by May's sacrifice. "Good girl," she whispered, leaning close and breathing in the young teenager's mouth.

May gasped and stiffened as her body suddenly began glowing radiantly, filling the kitchen with light and causing Munchlax to briefly glance away from the refrigerator to see what the big deal was, before concluding it was unimportant and going back to his smorgasbord. Caroline cried out and clapped her hands to her mouth. Norman's eyes widened in amazement. Skitty squealed excitedly at seeing the shiny thing and ran around it in circles.

The light shortly faded away, revealing May's new form. Skitty was pleased right away, noticing how her trainer now looked a lot like herself. May had become a humanoid Skitty, her body covered in tan fur on her legs, chest, and face, and pink everywhere else. She was more modestly clad than any of the other female creatures Misty had transformed so far, wearing a rather shapeless dull gray tunic that went down to her knees, with a rope belt somehow holding her Pokeballs as well as a leather satchel that had once been her fanny pack. Her petite feet wore leather sandals small enough to fit her. A very slim tail grew out from the bottom rear of her tunic which abruptly swelled into a very large pink club-like form at the end with three hairs ending in yellow spheres growing from the tip. Her hair, now pink, had grown a little longer, causing her bangs to dangle in her face and the rest to hang down her back, two large ears with feathery tips growing from the top of her head. Her corneas had thankfully not been shrunken into the slits that most Skitty (or Brock) had, allowing her blue eyes to be seen. Those blue eyes widened in horror as May looked all over herself. "What.what did you do to me?!"

"I did as you allowed me to," Misty told her. "To better serve Max, you must become a bit less human and a bit more feline. Now you will fit in better with the rest of the palace and be able to participate more in whatever activities are necessary to entertain and enlighten Max."

May glanced at her parents anxiously, as if fearing their reaction to her new look. "Mom, Dad, is this okay?!"

They didn't hesitate for more than a second. "Of course it, honey," Caroline said, hugging her daughter. "Why wouldn't it be?" Skitty purred in agreement and rubbed up against May's legs, while Munchlax glanced at her, belched, then kept eating.

Norman nodded and stood up. "You may look different on the outside.but we know that you're still May, still our daughter, where it counts."

A flash of guilt stung Misty, since she knew the same could not be said of their other child, not for much longer, anyways. "I will go retrieve my son now," she told them. "May, wait for me in the front hall, we will depart together."

May nodded. "Of course." She quietly slipped from the room, went back into the front hall, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. It didn't take her long to find Max's room, his physical and psychic scent made it easy to locate. She crept into the room without a sound, careful not to let the door make too much noise. The lights were out and the windows were drawn shut, but the darkness didn't trouble Misty. She had perfect night vision after all, allowing her to see all the Pokemon-related toys and gadgets cluttering the room, as well as the big poster of Professor Oak hanging right over Max's bed. It made her smile to see this expression of her son's happiness as a human childhood.while at the same time sobering her because she knew she was about to end that childhood for good.

She walked across the room and sat on the edge of Max's bed, looking intently at the dark-haired lump under the covers, head turned away from her, deep asleep. As she watched, Max rolled over, muttering some unimportant nonsense, allowing Misty to see his face. Her heart swelled as she observed his closed eyes, small nose, and drooling mouth, finding him utterly adorable.and reminding her so much of her son, as he had been centuries ago. And she knew then it was time to make her child hers once more.

"My dearest Ta-Hotep," she whispered, scooting closer and extending one of her hands to gently brush against his cheek. "It has been far, far too long.you have been at the forefront of my thoughts for the last five thousand years. I have worried over your fate, prayed that you were safe and happy, longed to hold you in my arms once more.and now my son, my brave little warrior, at last we are reunited. Now, our family will be whole once again." She bent down over him, breathing on his face. "Awaken, my darling prince, so that we may go home." She kissed Max on the forehead and straightened up, waiting for the transformation to begin.

She didn't have to wait long. Max's small frame began to glow brightly, illuminating the dark room and causing light to dance upon the walls. Misty stared intently into the radiance, her godly eyes unbothered by the divine light, waiting and watching for her son to return to her. The light soon faded, but a residual glow remained, clinging to the changed boy lying in the bed like a halo. The no longer quite human figure stirred and pushed off the covers, sitting up, stretching his arms, and opening his mouth to let out a long yawn that degenerated into a yowl. He opened his eyes, blinking back sleep, and widened them when he saw Misty sitting just a few inches away. "Mama?"

Misty's heart swelled, and tears of joy ran down her cheeks. "My son.my darling Ta-Hotep.at last, you've returned to me!"

"Mama!" cried Ta-Hotep ecstatically as she grabbed him and held him to her chest. "You're here! It was dark and quiet for so long, and I was so lonely and afraid.but now you're here, and everything's right again!"

"That it is," Misty whispered, nuzzling her child and inhaling his scent, which had been absent for so long that she had nearly forgotten it. "That it is."

After several moments, she held her son away from her and just looked at him, drinking in all that he was with her eyes. Max, or rather Ta-Hotep, was a humanoid Shinx, no more than a cub, really. He had black fur on the lower half of his body and gold on the upper, much like his father and sister. Large oval ears with orange insides shaped like four-pointed stars stuck out from the sides of his head. A tail grew from his rear that ended in an orange four-pointed star. A pair of gold bands were wrapped around his wrists, hieroglyphs of protection inscribed on them. A black collar was wrapped around his neck with a large scarab jewel placed right over his Adam's apple. He had big white eyes with glowing orange pupils, lighting his face along with his radiant smile to show how overjoyed he was to be with his mother again. His head fur was shaped in a vague approximation of the hair he had had as a human child. He wore no clothing, but needed none, since he was still just a young godling. That would change when he got older. "My beautiful boy," Misty murmured, her glad heart singing. "You are just as I remembered you."

"And you're just as beautiful as always, Mama!" Ta-Hotep said. "But where's Father and Sekhmet?"

"They are waiting for us in our new home," Misty said. "Would you like to go see them?"

"Of course!" Ta-Hotep said. He blinked. "But.'new' home? What happened to our old one?"

Misty's happiness ebbed somewhat. "It was.destroyed, remember? In the battle with Apep."

Ta-Hotep's face fell. "Oh," he said quietly. "Now I remember.what.what happened after that? I remember the palace crumbling, and then." He shook his head in confusion.

"We all went to sleep for a very long time," Misty explained, which was not far from the truth. "But I woke up recently and was able to find your father and sister and wake them up as well, and then I came to find you. And now that all of us are awakened, we may rebuild our palace and form a new kingdom, to replace the one that was destroyed all those years ago."

Ta-Hotep frowned unhappily. "If it's been so long.then.then all of my friends are dead, aren't they? Even the other gods?"

"I don't know about them," Misty admitted. "They might have survived, they might not. But I'm afraid that all your mortal friends are dead, yes. But.well, look on the bright side!" She said quickly, noticing how gloomy her son became. "At least you still have us.and I'm sure you'll make new friends soon enough!"

"Okay," Ta-Hotep said, his spirits rising somewhat. "Let's go home, Mama. I want to see Father and Sekhmet!"

"In a moment," Misty said, standing up and setting her son on the ground. "First, we need to say farewell to the kind people who took care of you until I was able to come and get you."

"Okay," said Ta-Hotep, taking his mother's hand as she led him out of the dark bedroom and down the stairs to the first floor, where an anxious Norman, Caroline, and May were all waiting. The trio looked even more unnerved when they saw just how much the Max they all remembered had been transformed. The reborn god blinked at them in confusion, as puzzled by their appearance as he was by the architecture of the house they were in, unsurprising since his memory of the last few thousand years was a total blank. "Um.hi?" he said awkwardly, not liking the way his former family was all staring at him.

Caroline put on a somewhat fake smile and bent down to look her former son in the face. "Hello, young man," she said, voice wavering a little. "Do you know who we are?"

"Um." Ta-Hotep glanced uncertainly at Misty, then back at Caroline. "I'm sorry, I know you're the people who've been taking care of me while I've been asleep.but I'm afraid I don't know your names."

Misty felt another deep pang of guilt as she watched Caroline's heart break. Norman's face twisted in pain and he looked away, while May shook her head in sorrow. Barely managing to keep the smile on her face, Caroline said, "Th-that's all r-right, dear. My name is Caroline. This is my husband Norman, and your sis-I mean, my d-daughter May."

Ta-Hotep blinked and looked at May, who gave him a weak smile. "I don't really see a family resemblance." he murmured, causing Misty to smack him. "Ow!"

"It's not nice to say things like that to people's faces," she growled at him.

"Then I'm supposed to say it behind their backs?" Ta-Hotep asked. Misty smacked him again. "Ow!"

"No, you're not supposed to say it at all!" Misty hissed. "Not within earshot, anyway."

"Sorry, Mama."

"May looks different because she agreed to come back home with us, with her parent's permission, to be your servant and playmate," Misty explained.

"Oh, wow!" Ta-Hotep said, eyes lighting up. "That's awesome! We're gonna have a great time together!"

"Y-yeah," May said, straining to hold her smile. "I'll.have a great time.getting to know you, Ma-I mean." She glanced at Misty, who mouthed her son's name to her. "Ta-Hotep."

"This is gonna be so much fun!" Ta-Hotep said eagerly.

Misty shook Norman's hand, noting unhappily how limp and clammy his grip seemed at the moment. "Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for everything you have done for us, for my family. I promise you that you will not go unrewarded for this."

"That's.that's great," Norman said faintly, glancing at his wife, who was leaving the room so she wouldn't burst into tears in front of her former son. "We were.honored to help you, Queen Bast. Now, I.I suppose you should get going, back to your palace."

"Oh, yeah!" Ta-Hotep said, tugging at Misty's arm. "Come on, Mama, we have to get going! I can't wait to see Dad and Sekhmet!"

"Yes, I suppose we should get going," agreed Misty, knowing it would probably be best to get Ta-Hotep away from there as soon as possible before his ex-parents had a breakdown.

"Goodbye, dad," May said, hugging her father for a moment. "I promise I'll write, and be back soon to tell you about everything!"

"I look forward to it, sweetie," Norman said, actually meaning it.

"Thank you, yet again, for everything you've given to us," Misty said, taking Norman's hands and looking him in the eye. "I swear to you, I will not forget what you have done. I will find someway, somehow, to make it up.though I fear whatever reward I give you will never be enough to adequately fill the void that has opened in your life."

"No," Norman said sadly, much to Ta-Hotep's puzzlement. "I don't think it will, either." He watched sadly as his daughter, the goddess, and the boy who was no longer his son left through the front door, then slumped against the wall. He could hear Caroline crying in the kitchen. "It was supposed to be our anniversary." he whispered.

"Mama, why were those people so sad?" Ta-Hotep asked his mother as they walked outside.

May winced and looked away. Misty sighed and squeezed her son's hand as the magical mists swirled up around them. "I'll tell you when you're older," she said. "I'll tell you when you're older."

She had no intention of doing so. Some wounds didn't heal with time, and this was one of them. What she had done today would haunt her for the rest of her life, and she never wanted her son to know the price that had been paid for his rebirth. She never wanted him to know the price that had been paid for their happiness.

Mew was sniffing and crying into a handkerchief. "Oh! That was just.so sad, wasn't it? My heart was breaking when I saw the look on their faces when they really understood that Max didn't remember them at all! Wasn't that horrible? I felt so bad for them.and Max'll never understand that he hurt them, because then his heart'll be broken too! I can understand why Misty'd never want to tell him." Eyes watering, she glanced at Mewtwo. "Didn't it make you sad, too?"

"Mmm," Mewtwo grunted, slouching in his seat, arms folded across his chest. "I've seen sadder."

Mew scowled and hurled popcorn at him. "Mewtwo!"

"What?!" he snapped. "Get a grip, parents lose their children every day all over the world! If they're not leaving of their own accord, than they're being captured by Pokemon trainers, running away, or kidnapped either for ransom or so they can be sold in the human (or Pokemon) flesh trade as organ donors or sex toys! Norman and Caroline are getting off lucky, all their son's lost is his memory, he's getting immortality and great power to go with it! Plus, they'll be able to visit him whenever they want, even if he doesn't really know who they are! Most parents who lose their children never hear from them again and have to live with that sorrow for the rest of their lives! Compared to that, what Norman and Caroline are going through is Combusken feed!"

Mew glared at him. "Just because their tragedy's not as big in magnitude as others elsewhere in the world doesn't make it any less sad!"

Mewtwo sneered at her. "If your heart bleeds for every little bit of suffering and atrocity in the world, soon your veins will be totally dry."

"At least it's better than having a heart of stone!" she screamed back at him.

Mewtwo flinched and recoiled at this. Mew instantly turned her back to him so she wouldn't have to look at him anymore. That meant she also couldn't see the pained and regretful look on Mewtwo's face. He had probably deserved that. He knew he did. He knew he should apologize, too. But.

He clenched his teeth together. Darnit, he wasn't going to apologize for telling her the truth. Even if it did make her call him stone-hearted. And hurt her feelings. And.

No. No, he was not going to go down that road. He wasn't sorry, and absolutely did NOT feel bad about making her unhappy. No sir, not one bit. And even if he did, his pride refused to let him compromise himself by actually apologizing, implying that he had been wrong and that he was sorry. What a preposterous thought!

Right?

He sighed, slumping in his chair. "Women," he grunted. What was it about them that could drive a usually rational and coldly logical man to madness?

Mew glanced over her shoulder at him, her red-rimmed eyes looking more curious than angry now. "What makes you think I'm a woman?"

Mewtwo blinked. Surely he hadn't heard that right. He stared at her. "Wh-what?" he stammered.

"I said, what makes you think I'm a woman?" Mew repeated.

Mew's pupils contracted. His mind shattered. "NO!" he screamed in denial. "YOU CAN'T-" His jaw dropped open as Mew tilted her head. "But.but." he protested. "The other day.when you.and I.and we.we did.you know." His hands fumbled about, trying and failing to describe what his gibberish words could not. "You.I mean.you were.and I was.and.and we.how.how the hell can you not be female?!"

Mew smiled and turned to face him. "I'm a hermaphrodite."

Mewtwo stared at her. He could feel his world crumbling out from under him. "What?"

"I'm a hermaphrodite. I have to be, otherwise I couldn't be progenitor of all life in the universe," Mew explained. "Not only can I reproduce all by myself, I also have the ability to change sexes at will. At the moment I'm physically female, just like I was the other day when we.you know." She blushed faintly. "But I could easily turn male if I wanted to. It depends on how I'm feeling. Sometimes I spend whole centuries as one gender before switching to the other. The eyelash they cloned you from was probably acquired from one of the periods when I was male, which explains why you're male now. But since you're my clone, that probably also means you can change sexes at will too, if you really wanted to. Isn't that neat?"

Mewtwo stared at her in horror, his face paler than usual. He sank back into his seat, focusing his gaze at some point beyond the television set, unable to banish from his mind the image of himself with breasts. "I'm going to have nightmares about this for the rest of my life. Thank you very much."

"You're welcome." Then she threw popcorn at him, just for good measure, and settled back to keep watching the drama unfold on the TV screen.

When the mist faded, they were standing on the sundeck of the Cerulean gym. May was a bit surprised that the sun was so high in the air, but that was because Cerulean and Petalburg were in different time zones, so while it had been nearly dusk back in Hoenn as they left, it was just around noon in Kanto now.

It took a moment for everyone else on the sundeck to realize they were there. Tracey was shirtless and lying on his chest on one of the deck chairs while a purring Daisy sensually massaged his back. Dawn was curled up in another chair, soaking up sunbeams, while Lily cooled her with a giant fan she had gotten from who-knows-where. Ash was chasing Aipom all over the deck, trying to make the cheeky purple monkey give back his royal headdress, which it was brazenly waving about in the hand growing from the end of its tail.

Violet obediently fed Pikachu, Staravia, Turtwig, Happiny, Piplup, Bunneary, Pachirisu, Buizel, Psyduck, Corsola, Politoed, Marill and Azurill grapes, sweets, and whatever else they desired. The Pokemon were all lazily sitting on cushions, relaxing as Sudowoodo shaded them from the sun and Brock, wearing an apron much too small for his giant frame that said, 'Kiss the cook, (please, I'm begging you!)' prepared more food on a barbecue grill nearby, Croagunk watching him to make sure he didn't accidentally burn anything by staring at Misty's gorgeous and scantily-clad sisters for too long. Misty didn't need divine intuition to notice that Bunneary seemed a little too comfortable sitting next to Pikachu, and smiled a very feline smile of amusement as she observed this.

"Wh-what is all this?!" May gasped in horror.

"Welcome to your new home," Misty said cheerfully. "Or the start of it, anyway."

Ta-Hotep, wide grin on his face, ran out onto the deck upon seeing his father and sister. "Dad, Sis, it's really you!"

Dawn instantly sat up and turned to see her brother. "Ta-Hotep?!" she cried joyfully.

Ash, who was currently jumping up and down in frustration trying to reach Aipom, who had climbed up onto the roof of the structure in the center of the sundeck which housed the stairwell and a small cabana stocked with cool drinks, towels, and spare swimwear, and was dangling his headdress just out of reach, glanced away from the evil monkey to see his son running towards him. A broad grin split his face. "My son! You've returned!" Forgetting about Aipom, he bounded over to Ta-Hotep, grabbed him, and spun about, raising him high into the air while laughing ecstatically. "At last, you're home!" Aipom chittered in disappointment and dropped Ash's headdress on a surprised Pikachu's head, seeing his little game was at an end.

"Yeah, I'm glad to see you too, Dad," Ta-Hotep said, eyes swirling. "Uh, could you put me down now, I'm kind of dizzy."

Instead of putting him down, Ash strode over to the edge of the sundeck and raised Ta-Hotep high into the air for all below to see, Dawn summoning a sunbeam to shine on Ta-Hotep and make him easier to see, with the annoying side effect of nearly blinding him. "MY SON HAS RETURNED! BEHOLD YOUR FUTURE RULER!" he bellowed to the winds.

There was a smattering of applause from one or two of the half-dozen people who had gathered on the lawn below, hoping to ogle Misty's sisters and instead found a bunch of cat-people who were both more interesting and sexier than the girls they had come to see. The few Pokemon that had shown up to see what was going on either looked up curiously or fled in fright due to the volume of Ash's voice. "Whoo!" yelled one young man, raising a burning lighter into the air.

Ash frowned and squinted down at the lawn. "Funny, I thought we'd have more subjects by now. We'll have to work on that."

"Dad, can you put me down now?" Ta-Hotep whined. "I think I'm getting a headache."

"Hmm? Oh, sure son." Ash carefully lowered his son to the ground and beamed at him proudly. "Welcome home!"

"It's so good to see you, little brother," Dawn said happily as she hugged Ta-Hotep.

The others gathered around to get a good look at the new prince. "Oh, he's so adorable!" cooed Violet.

"Yes, isn't he such a cute little master?" Lily agreed.

"Nice.but was it worth interrupting my massage?" Tracey muttered, causing Daisy to huff and scratch his face.

"Great, another mouth to feed." Brock grumbled.

"Pi Pikachu, pika cha Pikachu," Pikachu muttered, still wearing Ash's headdress. Something seems vaguely familiar about him.

"Bun bunny Bunneary bun," Bunneary said, rubbing up against him. You look really good in that hat!

Pikachu sweatdropped and adjusted the thing on his head surreptitiously. "Pipi, Pika kachu." Thanks.I think. The other Pokemon snickered, until Pikachu's cheeks started sparking threateningly, and then they shut up.

"Psyduck," said Psyduck, holding his head. Psyduck.

"Corsola cor cor Corsola cor," complained Corsola. He never says anything worthwhile.

"As you can see, I have brought back our long-lost son, Ta-Hotep, completing our family," Misty said, walking over, May timidly following her. "But he is not all I brought back with me. This is May, the newest member of our staff, and Max's personal servant. I trust you will all make her feel welcome?" The last was an order, not a question.

"H-hi," May said, weakly waving to the group staring at her.

"Oh, look!" Daisy meowed, touching and sniffing May a little too closely for the girl's comfort. "Mistress has brought back a new slave!"

"Not as pretty as us, though," Violet said haughtily, brushing back some of her hair. "That can be changed, though."

"Do we want to, though?" Lily whispered to Violet. "We three are Mistress's most beautiful servants, we don't want anyone taking that spot!"

"Oh, don't worry, she'll never be as pretty as us," Violet whispered back. "And besides, all our loveliness pales in comparison to Mistress and Mistress's daughter, so it really doesn't matter."

"Of course it does, I don't want to be the second-prettiest slave in the house!" Lily growled.

Violet laughed. "Didn't you know, Lily? You already are!" Lily snarled in fury and pounced, tackling Violet to the ground. The two began rolling about, hissing and snarling and scratching and ripping each other's hair out. Tracey quickly whipped out his pad and started sketching, wondering if either of the girls' minimal clothing would be torn off what with the sharp claws and fangs both felines were bringing to bear. The Pokemon started taking bets on which of the two would win, or at least lose their clothing first.

"Ooh, catfight!" Brock said eagerly. Croagunk croaked loudly, causing Brock to flinch and quickly take a step back. "What?! I was just stating the obvious, not making a lecherous comment! Honest! They're cats, and they really are fighting!"

"What's going on?" asked a confused Ta-Hotep.

Daisy put a hand over the prince's eyes. "Nothing you need concern yourself over, young master. Not until you're old enough for women to be killing each other to marry you, anyway."

"Oh, okay."

Misty sighed and put her face in her hands. "It figures. I transform my sisters into extremely loyal and obedient servants, and they still manage to be as vain as all get out."

"You turned your own sisters into servants?!" cried the horrified May.

"Trust me, they're better off this way," Misty said flatly.

"Uh, should we, you know, stop this or something?" Ash asked Misty.

She stared at him blankly. "No. Why, is there any particular reason we should?"

"Um.no, I guess not," Ash said, looking confused. "Hey, is Pikachu wearing my headdress?" Pikachu sheepishly took off the royal ornament and handed it to Ash. "Hey, thanks." Ash put it back on and glared sternly at Aipom. "And don't you dare try to steal it again, or I'll have your hands chopped off! All three of them!"

"Ash!" snapped a surprised Misty as Aipom chittered and screeched in horror.

"What? It's the standard punishment for thieves!" Ash protested. "And it's my headdress! Nobody else is supposed to wear it!"

May blinked, suddenly putting two and two together. There was only one person she knew who was that protective of his headgear and got it stolen by an Aipom frequently, and had a Pikachu. "Oh my.Ash, is that you?!"

"Yeah, of course it is," Ash said. "Who else would it be? What, you don't recognize me?"

"Um.no, not really," May confessed. "I mean, I heard Bast was Misty, but I never really thought.wait, then who are you?" she asked, referring to Dawn. "I mean, it's obvious the Snorlax is Brock, what with the eyes, apron, and how he was staring at the other women, but I don't know who you're supposed to be."

"I'm Dawn," Dawn told May. "I used to be a coordinator traveling through Ash in the Sinnoh region, but then I found out I'm the reincarnation of the Lightbringer Sekhmet, daughter of Leono and Bast, AKA Ash and Misty. So I pretty much became a god."

"Oh," said May. "Wait, you said you were a coordinator?"

Dawn nodded. "Yeah."

"How many contests have you been in?" May pressed.

Dawn fidgeted. "Well.only a couple.I only have just the one ribbon, unless you count the one Mom gave me."

May flushed with pride. "It just so happens I'm a coordinator too, and I managed to get all the way to the Grand Festivals in Hoenn and Kanto! And.maybe a quarter way through Johto before going home." She didn't want to mention that she had left because she had suffered a crippling defeat and had ran home in tears.

"Really? Wow!" said an impressed Dawn. "Do you think you could give me some pointers, then? From one coordinator to another"

"Sure!" said May, glad to know that she had at least one thing her new divine masters did not.

"Not sure how useful those pointers would be," Brock commented. "Seeing as how she never actually won any of the Grand Festivals, and the fact that she left Johto must have meant she lost pretty badly there too."

"BROCK!" May cried in horror, face falling.

"That was a very cruel thing to say," Misty scolded Brock.

"What? It's true! I mean, you could say the same thing about Ash, he's been in three leagues and won none of those either!" Brock pointed out. "And he's sort of quit Sinnoh early to be a god now."

"coughOrange Islandscough," Ash said, glaring at Brock. "And Battle Frontier too."

"Oh come on, Battle Frontier wasn't even a real league! And we all know the Orange Islands don't count, I wasn't even there for that!" Brock argued.

"Because you were busy with Professor Ivy?" Tracey said innocently.

Brock's face paled. He curled up and sat in a corner, face turned away from everyone, gloom covering him like a shroud. "That.name."

Dawn and May blinked, not sure what had just happened. ".Huh?"

"It's a long story," Misty said. "Anyway, ignore what he just said, May, he's just grumpy because he got turned into a big fat Snorlax instead of a hot god like Ash so he can't attract lots of women."

"Oh," May said, somewhat relieved. "So, he's not a god like you are?"

"No, just hired help," Misty said. "Like you."

"Right."

"Hey, get up and make some more food, I'm hungry!" Ta-Hotep complained, poking the brooding Brock's stomach. The Pokemon, who were also hungry, surrounded Brock and made a loud clamor to show that they wanted food too.

"Go away, can't you see I'm angsting?" Brock moaned.

"If he's hired help, you should probably cut his pay," Dawn commented. "For being rude and unhelpful."

Ash blinked. "We're paying him?"

"I think this has gone on long enough," Misty said, changing the subject. She clapped her hands. "Lily! Violet! Stop that at once!"

The sisters immediately stopped their clawing and scratching and leaped to their feet, hair disheveled, fur missing in clumps, blood oozing from scratches and bite wounds all over their bodies, and one of Violet's breasts hanging out from her sagging and almost-broken chest cloth. Brock's 'girl-senses' detected this and immediately snapped him out of his funk, his nonexistent nose gushing with blood, until Croagunk delivered a Poison Jab to his stomach and caused him to topple over, paralyzed. "Ow." Croagunk croaked in amusement.

"Wow, it's a good thing I wasn't right beneath you when you fell over, or Mama and Dad would tear you limb from limb and disembowel you," Ta-Hotep commented, looking down at Brock from the side. "You just landed on Psyduck, though, so you should be okay."

If Brock had had eyes, they would have widened in horror. "Oh CRAAAAAAAAP!" he yelled as he was surrounded in a blue aura and hurled into the air by the rather squished Psyduck underneath him, flinging him over the side of the sundeck railing and onto the ground below, crushing a pervert who was trying to catch Lily and Violet's post-catfight disarray on video camera in the process. "Ow.again."

"Yes, mistress?" Lily asked.

"What can we do to serve you, mistress?" Violet asked. Both of them were acting as if they had not just been trying to kill each other only seconds ago.

"Have both of you finished all your chores?" Misty asked sternly.

Her former sisters nodded vigorously. "Of course, Mistress! I cleaned the gym from top to bottom!" said Lily.

"And I fed all the Pokemon! Although Gyarados tried to eat me." Violet said.

"Very good. Now that our family is complete, I believe it's time we transformed this gym into a dwelling suitable for the gods," Misty said.

"Cool! Am I gonna get my old room back?" Ta-Hotep asked eagerly.

Misty nodded. "Yes, dear."

"Ooh, and my personal training room?" Ash asked hopefully.

Misty rolled her eyes. "Yes, that too."

"Um, before you transform the gym, do you think you could change me, please?" Tracey asked politely. "I've decided to be one of you cat-person things after all. As long as it doesn't hinder my artistic abilities, I mean."

"All right. Is there any reason in particular you've decided to be one of us?" Misty asked.

"Um, I think I'll be able to do my job better if I'm, ah, in the right frame of mind as the people whom I'm serving," Tracey said, trying not to glance at Daisy.

"Riiiight," Misty said, not fooled. However, she saw no reason to deny his request. "Very well." She walked over to Tracey, put her hands on his shoulders, and breathed into his mouth, much to his surprise.

"Why does she do that?" May asked.
"Do what?" replied Ash.

"The breath thing. It's kind of creepy," May complained.

"It's a cat thing," Dawn explained. "Dogs smell each other's butts to say hello, we smell each other's breath."

"Oh," May said.

"That's why we cats are culturally superior to dogs!" Ash boasted proudly. "Son, stop trying to grab my tail."

"But it's so neat! And wiggly!" Ta-Hotep protested, trying and failing to grab the star at the end of Ash's tail, which kept moving out of the way before he could catch it.

While they had been talking about Misty's breath, Tracey had finished his transformation, changing into a Meowth-man. He wasn't quite as ripped or muscular as Ash, but he was certainly leaner and more fit than he had been as a human. He had tan fur covering his body, five elegant fingers per hand perfect for artistry with retractable claws, long sandals to match his long brown-tipped feet, a curly tail with a brown tip, and a loincloth. He had six whiskers growing from his face, four from his cheeks and two from the top of his head, framing an oval-shaped gold charm held in place by his usual headband, that also pushed back some of his head fur in his usual hair style. He had big feline eyes, a wide mouth, and no nose, something he discovered only moments later, much to his horror. "Ack! My nose! Where's my nose?!" he cried, his voice sounding slightly higher and more nasal due to his lack of an olfactory organ. "Oh shoot, it must have fallen off or something! Quick, somebody help me find my nose!"

"Is this it?" Ta-Hotep asked, holding up something.

"No, son, that's Azurill," Ash said.

"Azurill!" Azurill squeaked happily.

"Oh. Can I eat it?" Ta-Hotep asked.

"NO/MARILL!" cried a horrified Tracey, Misty, and Marill.

"If you eat it, or Marill, or Pikachu, your mother and I will skin you alive," Ash threatened.

"You wouldn't!" said an alarmed Ta-Hotep.

"Don't be so sure, they can always have another child," Dawn pointed out.

"Eep." Ta-Hotep quickly put Azurill back on the ground. Marill quickly rushed over to grab it, scolding the young prince heavily in the process. He wasn't really paying attention, though.

"Young master, Meowth aren't supposed to have noses," Daisy told the artist calmly. "Yours didn't fall off; it just shrunk into your face. It'll grow back if you ever evolve into a Persian."

"Oh. Right," Tracey laughed sheepishly. Then he cried in pain as Pikachu electrified him. "AAAAGHH! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!?!"

Pikachu laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his head. "Pi Pika pi Pikachu." Sorry, force of habit.

"All right, now that that's out of the way, it's time to make this dwelling into a place fit for the gods!" Misty said.

"You already said that," Ash pointed out.

Her eye twitched. "I know. I was just trying to get everything back on track."

"Oh. Okay."

Misty held out her hands. "Let us join hands and bring our palace back into this world."

"Do I need to do any heavy lifting?" Ash asked.

She sighed in exasperation. "No, just hold my hand already!"

Ash blinked. "But.we're in public.with lots of people looking at us."

"DO IT ALREADY!" Misty snarled, causing him to yelp and hold her hand. "You too," she growled at her children, who quickly complied.

"What are they doing?" May whispered to Daisy.

"Combining their powers to change the entire building into a grand palace," the slave girl whispered back.

"Oh." May's eyes widened. "They can do that?!"

Daisy rolled her eyes. "Well, duh."

On the ground below, Brock was knocking on the front doors of the gym. (Lily had repaired the door Misty had ripped off its hinges a few hours ago.) "Uh, hello? Anyone in there? I have to get back inside, how else am I gonna make food for all of you?!" That's when the ground began to rumble, and the dome-shaped gym started glowing. Brock's face paled. "Aw crap, that can't be good."

He was right. There was a flash of light from the rooftop sundeck, and an energy beam shot up into the sky from the circle formed by the four gods holding hands, exploding with a brilliant flare and shockwave which blinded Brock and sent him tumbling backwards, rolling over and over and unable to stop himself due to his body's rotund build. Fortunately, his out-of-control rolling was halted when he crashed into a tree, snapping it in half but also stopping his backward momentum. "Ow," he groaned, seeing little chirping Pidgeys flying in circles around his head. He shook his head to clear it, and stared in disbelief at the building standing where the gym had been moments ago. Thinking he was probably seeing things because he was currently upside-down, he rolled over, picked himself up, and looked again. No, he had been right the first time, there really was a fantastic palace made of yellowish granite and sandstone standing where the Cerulean Gym had once been.

Right before him was an immense courtyard with paved stones that could probably fit thousands of people, starting from the foot of the palace and extending past Brock for at least half a mile. Looking around, Brock realized the tree he had broken was just one of many plants growing in the several small enclosed decorative gardens dotting the courtyard. The small garden Brock was currently in sat just behind an enormous stone sphinx staring off into the distance. The edges of the courtyard were lined with wide waterways flowing from a large pool that formed a moat before the front of the palace, with a wide bridge traversing it to the great edifice's broad stone steps. Channels around the steps led inside the palace, allowing the Water Pokemon living in the building to swim in and out whenever they wished. Just past the waterways were the boundaries of the courtyard, formed by a series of obelisks interspaced between statues of seated Persian, Delcatty, Luxray, and Glameow. The palace itself was beautiful to behold, a tremendous and sprawling rectangular structure spreading back and to the sides, the walls covered with magnificent and colorful hieroglyphs and pictograms.

The wide steps, framed on either side by a golden sphinx, led up from the big pool and terminated in a broad terrace with enormous pillars shaped like lotus flowers stretching upward to support the triangular façade hanging over the front, its face covered in gold engravings depicting cats and gods and other things. On closer observation, the façade had a small ledge jutting out from its front with an almost invisible door recessed into the engravings through which the palace's owners could probably step out and address their subjects in the courtyard from on high. Standing on the terrace, positioned so that they could be seen perfectly through the great pillars, were giant statues depicting the four gods in residence, including what Ta-Hotep would probably look like as an adult, the Queen and her consort flanking the main entrance and their children standing on either side of them. The doors themselves were towering and made of solid metal with the image of the sun shining down on a pair of basking cats embossed on it, and Brock wondered how on Earth such big and heavy-looking doors could possibly be opened.

The roof of the palace sloped upwards in a trapezoidal formation, forming a long, flat plateau at the top where an enormous and incredibly beautiful garden, practically a miniature rainforest, was planted, moss and ivy growing outwards and crawling down the sides of the roof. There were probably pools up there, and paved walkways, and all sorts of other things, though Brock couldn't really tell from this angle. He could see the two tall, thin, needle-like obelisks rising from the center of the rooftop garden, their tips covered in gold and gleaming brilliantly in the midday sun.

"Wow," said Brock dully, overawed by the immense palace. "This probably breaks, like, a million city zoning laws." He perked up instantly. "Oh! But that means Officer Jenny will come by to lodge a complaint or evict everyone...and I'll be a giant talking Snorlax, so she won't pay any attention to me." He slumped in disappointment. "Darnit." He started walking towards the palace steps, since there was nowhere else to go. "Why the heck does it have to be so far away?!"

It took him several minutes to reach the moat, and by that time he was panting, sweating all over, and exhausted. He glanced at the cool, refreshing water, imagining just jumping in to cool off. Then he saw Gyarados swimming around just under the surface and decided he'd rather not.

After climbing up the steps, and wondering why there had to be so many of them, too (he almost fell back down a few times, but fortunately had been able to maintain his balance), Brock reached the terrace, dragged himself over to the doors, and leaned against them for a moment to catch his breath, wondering how he was going to get inside.

That was when the one he was leaning on flew open with a swift movement, knocking Brock over and sending him rolling off the terrace, down the stairs, and into the moat, his heavy splash attracting Gyarados and causing the atrocious sea serpent to come over and see what was going on. Brock screamed and quickly swam for shore as fast as he could, but since he was a huge lumbering Snorlax, that wasn't very fast.

Back on the terrace, the royal family and their servants came out through the door Ash had just opened, looking around in amazement at what the power of the gods had brought forth. "Wow," said an impressed Ash. "You really outdid yourself, Mist."

"Pika Pika!" agreed Pikachu.

Misty nodded, pleased with herself. "It's greater than I ever expected."

"This is incredible!" gushed Dawn.

"It's even better than our last palace!" Ta-Hotep agreed.

"It's a masterpiece of architecture and artwork!" Tracey added, frantically sketching it out in his notepad.

The servants were not quite as thrilled. "I hope we're getting more staff soon," complained Lily. "I don't want to have to clean up all this, plus everything inside, by myself!"

"Don't worry, I'm sure we can just hire.or force.the nice people of Cerulean to take care of this mammoth place when they come by to see what's up. They're gonna be the subjects of Mistress anyway, might as well do something productive with their service," Violet said.

"Then we'll have more people to boss around! Won't that be fun?" Daisy said, cackling evilly.

May was much more subdued. They were able to turn an entire gym into... into this! Her mind reeled at the concept. How...how am I supposed to do this?! They're gods, immortal, beautiful, and practically omnipotent! I'm just a mortal. A slave. A nobody. How can I possibly take care of and watch over Max when he's become so, so beyond me?! He doesn't even know who I am anymore.just 'some girl' who decided to become his servant.Her heart sank deeper and deeper in despair and self-loathing. Even the other servants are prettier than I am. Why did I insist on coming? I would have been better off staying at home.but now it's too late. Even if I went home, I'd be stuck like this. There's nothing I can do. I'm going to have to stay here and serve the gods and die in a blink of an eye, compared to their eternal lifespans. They'll probably even forget I was ever here. She bit her lip in misery.

"Oh, hey Brock," Ash said, noticing a wet and bedraggled Snorlax pulling himself out of the moat and lying, heaving, on the bridge. "What're you doing down there?"

Brock gasped for breath. "You've really.wheeze.gotta put in escalators.and people movers.and elevators.and maybe some.gasp.Segways, this place is too big for a guy to walk from one end to the other."

"We'll look into it," Misty said as Ash helped Brock to his feet.

"Can you look into making me smaller, too? It's hard to walk long distances like this." Brock complained, shaking himself in an attempt to dry off.

"Too bad you can't fly," Mew commented from beside him. "Or teleport. Either one is much faster."

Brock nodded. "Yeah." There was a pause. Then he realized the legendary Mew was right beside him. She waved. He yelped, stumbled backwards, and fell into the moat again, creating a big splash that Mew easily deflected with a wall of psychic force.

"Sorry!" Mew called to Brock as he frantically swam to shore again in an attempt to escape the curious Gyarados. "My bad."

"Hey, it's Aunt Mew!" Ta-Hotep said happily.

"Oh, wow, I haven't seen her in ages!" Dawn said, both of them running down the steps to see the pink flying kitten.

"...Aunt Mew?!" May asked incredulously, feeling even more out of her depth.

"Well, they are gods," Tracey reasoned. "It'd make sense for them to be chummy to some extent with other deities. And it makes sense they'd know Mew, since she's been around forever and has been depicted in sculptures and writings from just about every civilization on the planet going back thousands of years, including Pokegypt, meaning she's probably been to all those places at one point or another. This is so cool!"

"Like, he's such a nerd," Violet complained to Daisy. "What do you see in him, anyway?"

Daisy hissed, extending her claws threateningly. "Shut up!"

"It's great to see you again, Mew," Ash said, shaking one of Mew's hands, which were so tiny they practically vanished in Ash's big claws.

Mew nodded. "Same here! Oh, Lucario says hi, by the way."

Ash blinked, and looked at Pikachu, who gave him an equally perplexed look. "Isn't Lucario dead?"

"Like that means anything. Hey! Kids! Looking good!" Mew said, leaving Ash and swooping over to see Dawn and Ta-Hotep as they came over. Misty followed behind them, at a less breakneck pace, in no great hurry. "Why, if I didn't know better, I'd have sworn you hadn't just been reincarnated from human form a couple hours ago!"

Dawn blushed, and Ta-Hotep looked at her in confusion. "You were?"

Dawn's eyes widened. "Ahhhh.."

"It's a long story," Misty said, putting a hand on her son's shoulder. "We'll explain later." She took both of Mew's hands in her own and rubbed her nose against the pink kitten's face. "My dear friend.it has been far, far too long."

"Definitely, almost five thousand years," Mew said, nuzzling her back. "Unless you count that one time a few years ago when Mewtwo killed Ash and tried to destroy the planet."

Ash blinked. "Huh? When'd that happen?"

"Oh, of course you wouldn't remember, your memory was erased," Mew said casually.

"Oh." Ash looked at Pikachu in confusion. The electric mouse shrugged to show he had no idea what Mew was talking about either.

"So, anyway, did you incarnate all right? All your memories intact? Emotions in order? Powers working fine?" Mew asked Misty, looking concerned. "Coming back from death the first time is always disorienting, but it gets easier on subsequent times."

"You've died before?" asked a surprised Dawn.

"Only occasionally, when I feel like it or get bored," Mew said. "But I always bounce back. It's who I am."

"Ah," said Dawn, not understanding at all, unsurprisingly.

"They seem pretty close," Brock, dripping wet (again) commented to Ash.

Ash nodded in agreement. "Yeah, they've been best friends for centuries. Misty's known Mew since she was just a little god-kitten."

"Huh." Brock said nothing for a moment. "So...that means they've been friends even since before you and Misty got together, right?"

Ash nodded. "Yeah, why?"

"Well, uh." Brock fidgeted. "Do you think they.you know.were, ah... more than just friends?"

Ash stared at him blankly. "Huh?"

"Well, you know, teenagers sometimes experiment a little while they're growing up, to see what they're good at or who they're good at." Brock said, trailing off when he saw the way Ash was looking at him. "I was just wondering if it might be the same for some gods."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Ash said flatly.

"Pikachu pi pika chapi Pikachu cha," Pikachu said. He's asking if Mew and Misty ever slept together.

"Oh," said Ash. There was a pause. Then his eyes flashed, and he angrily pushed Brock off the side of the bridge, causing him to fall into the water with a wail and a big splash which Ash shielded himself from with his cape. "None of your business!" he yelled as the Snorlax frantically started swimming, from the third time, away from Gyarados.

"So, didja bring us anything, Aunt Mew? Huh? Didja?" Ta-Hotep asked eagerly.

"Yeah, you always give us the coolest stuff!" Dawn agreed. "Like that ten-dimensional interchronal viewer you gave me for my three hundred and fiftieth birthday!"

"Or that pretty bouncing sparkling ball which entertained me for hours and hours!" Ta-Hotep said. "Playing with that never got old!"

Mew laughed, breaking away from Misty and flying around the kids' heads. "Well, I did bring something as a housewarming present." she said teasingly.

"Oh boy! Is it a BIG sparkling ball?" Max asked hopefully.

"Or handsome dancers?" Dawn asked with equal hope.

"Or a Mamoswine?" Ash asked eagerly. They stared at him. "What? I'm hungry, and I always wanted to eat one! We never got any in Pokegypt."

"No..." Mew said slowly. "But I think it will be something you'll all love! It's-"

Just then, a grabber claw on an extendable arm shot out of nowhere and tried to snatch Pikachu. Ash reflexively caught it by the wrist before the hand could close on his startled Pika-pal and ripped it off. He blinked, looking from the severed hand to the sparking arm in confusion as it retracted. "Huh? Where'd that come from?"

"Oh, from the same place as this one," Mew said calmly as another arm tried to snatch her, only to be disintegrated when she glanced at it.

"Muhahahahaha!" a familiar voice cackled stupidly, causing everyone to groan. A giant robot shaped like an Entei with a big red R on its chest, two broken extendable robot arms growing from its shoulders, vaulted over the obelisks ringing the courtyard and landed on the paved stones just before the moat, cracking the tiles. Misty's ex-sisters sighed in exasperation; certain they were going to have to fix that damage themselves.

"Didn't we already go through this once today?" complained Dawn.

"And didn't I send them blasting off? How'd they find us, anyway?" said Misty with a frown.

"Well, I imagine the big flash of light caused by you turning the gym into a giant freaking palace might have tipped them off," Brock suggested, pulling himself out of the moat again. He cringed when she glared at him. "Please don't push me back in the water for saying that, I've had enough already!"

May groaned. "I thought I was through with these guys when I left Ash.well, guess it was inevitable that they'd show up eventually, now that I'm with him again."

They could hear more annoying laughter as three all-too-familiar figures rose through a hatch on the top of the robot Entei's head. "Listen, is that a catty voice I hear?" asked Jessie.

"It's purring to me, loud and clear," said James, holding a rose for some reason.

"Wow, she's ugly," said a disgusted Violet.

"Yeah, yell me about it," agreed Lily. "The new girl looks better than her!"

"Thanks.I think." May said, somewhat confused.

Jessie's face turned red. "HEY, WHO ARE YOU CALLING UGLY, HAIRY LEGS?!"

"I'm supposed to have hairy legs, I'm a cat!" Violet yelled back.

"And we look way better with them than you do," added Lily, posing.

"Well, at least I don't wear such slutty outfits!" Jessie retorted angrily.

"Only because nobody'd want to see what you've got under them!" Daisy called back.

"Ooh, burn," Lily approved.

Jessie fumed angrily. "WHY YOU-"

"Ah, Jessie, the motto?" James interrupted.

Jessie blinked. "Hmm? Oh right! Ahem: Floating on the winds!"

"Past the stars!"

"Can't we skip this part? You already deliver this once today!" Brock complained.

"No, now shut up!" Jessie snarled.

"How did he know that? I don't recall seeing a Snorlax earlier this morning." wondered James. "Come to think of it, what's Pikachu doing here, anyway?"

"Who cares? Pikachu's here with Mew and those others, so we can catch 'em and give 'em to the boss!" Meowth said. Pikachu sighed in exasperation and rolled his eyes when he heard this. "Now, where were we? Oh, right, in your ear!"

"Why is he up there with them, anyway?" Dawn wondered. "Shouldn't he be worshipping us or something?"

"He's too stupid to recognize his rightful masters when he sees them," Mew said. "A shame."

"Hey, I ain't stupid!" Meowth yelled.

"That's debatable." Misty muttered under her breath.

"And the only master I worship is the Boss, so there!" Meowth finished triumphantly.

"Ah, Mewoth? You're ruining the motto," James said.

Meowth blinked. "Huh? Oh, sorry. Please continue."

They did. "Bringing chaos at a breakneck pace!"

"Dashing hope, putting fear in its place!"

"A rose by any other name's just as sweet!"

"When everything's worse, our work is complete!"

"Jessie!"

"And it's James!"

"Meowth! Now that's a name!"

"Putting the do-gooders in their place!"

"Team Rocket!"

"We're in your face!"

"Wobbuffet!" said Wobbuffet, popping out of its Pokeball.

"Mime mime!" said James' Mime Jr., imitating Wobbuffet.

Ta-Hotep blinked. "Mama, are they clowns?"

"Yes dear, exceptionally stupid ones," Misty said, causing Team Rocket to facefault.

Daisy yawned. "I give it a 4 out of 10. We can do better routines in our sleep."

"Without even getting cleaned up or anything in the morning!" added Lily.

"Though I wouldn't want to do a routine, looking like that," admitted Violet. "By which I mean, either looking like we hadn't gotten ready in the morning, or looking like those three idiots over there."

"HEY!" yelled Team Rocket.

May sighed and shook her head. "Their motto's changed, and they're still as pathetic as ever."

"What's she talking about? When has she heard our motto before?" wondered James. "Is it just me, or do she.and some of the other weird cat-things.look vaguely familiar?"

"It's just you," Jessie said dismissively. "Anyway, we're going to capture you all by using a cat's greatest weakness, which we learned from Meowth!"

"Getting drenched in water after getting your fur just right from spending an hour licking it all into place?" Dawn suggested.

"Poisoned food?" offered Ash.

"Losing all nine lives?" said Brock.

"A ball of string or really sparkly thing to catch the eye?" asked Ta-Hotep.

There was a pause. "Actually, we were thinking more along the line of dogs." James said finally.

"Yeah, they scare the crud outta me!" said Meowth.

"That's because you're small and...well...really weak," Ash said. He flexed his muscles. "Look at me; do you think I have any reason to be afraid of dogs?"

"And I played with dogs all the time back in Pokegypt," said Ta-Hotep. "If anything, they were afraid of me."

"And if dogs ever bother me, I usually just turn myself into something bigger and badder. Or teleport away. Or defeat them using my totally awesome skillz," Mew commented.

Team Rocket slumped. "Well, building this thing was a big waste of time, then," complained Jessie.

"Yes, and we even went all the way to my childhood home and risked being married to Jessiebelle to get my old friend Growly and bring him up here!" James said unhappily, pressing a button on a remote control and causing the robot Entei's chest to open up, a robot arm extending outwards with a large Arcanine held in its claw. The big mutt barked happily and panted, tongue hanging out and tail wagging. "Aren't you at least the tiniest bit scared?" The gods and former humans glanced at each other, then shook their heads. James' face fell. Mime Jr. mimicked him, looking like a very sad clown indeed.

"Nice going, Meowth," Jessie growled.

"Hey, I thought it would work! I'm a cat, and I'm plenty scared of that big mutt!" Growly barked again, and Meowth yowled and leaped into the air, landing on James' face.

"Please get off, I can't breathe," James said in a muffled voice from beneath Meowth's fur.

"Well, we still have a giant robot, and we'll crush you with it, whether you're afraid of dogs or not!" Jessie promised, the elevator platform Team Rocket was standing on lowering back into the robot Entei. "Prepare for ultimate defeat!"

The gods gave each other bored looks. "Okay, who wants to take them out?" Ash asked.

"Pikapi kachu chupi, pi pika Pikachu chu," Pikachu said. I'm not doing it, I have to do it all the time. One of you do it!

"Ooh, can I kill them Mama?" Ta-Hotep begged eagerly. "Can I, please?"

"No, you're too young to kill them," Misty said. "Besides, they seem to be half-immortal themselves, I'm not sure we can kill them. Though we can certainly try."

"There's only one way to decide this," Ash said firmly. He extended his fist. Misty, Dawn, and Mew all extended theirs as well. And then.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

Ash got rock, Misty got paper, and Dawn and Mew both got scissors. "Yes, I won!" Dawn cheered happily.

"Me too!" Mew said.

"Wait, don't I win?" Ash protested. "I got rock, which beats scissors!"

"Yeah, until my paper covers it," Misty pointed out.

"But then our scissors cut it!" Dawn said.

"How do you know my rock didn't break them first?" Ash said.

"Because then I'd be the winner," Misty said.

Ash paused. "Oh. Um.then maybe I waited until they cut up your paper and THEN smashed their scissors! Ha! I win!"

Mew blinked. "I'm not sure it works that way."

"I'm confused," Ta-Hotep whined.

"Oh, just let Dawn do it," Misty said finally. "She hasn't gotten to do much lately."

"Thanks, Mom.I think." Dawn said, frowning at her.

"Awww, and I wanted to help," Mew complained.

"You brought us a housewarming gift, that's good enough," Misty said. "Though we don't really know what that is just yet."

"You will soon enough! You're gonna love it!" Mew told her eagerly.

"Hey, why aren't they paying attention to us? We're standing right here with a giant robot ready to crush them!" Jessie said angrily.

"Maybe they don't think we're impoitant enough to bother with. The snobs!" Meowth sneered.

"Oh, look, the one with the staff's coming over here," James said, observing how Dawn was walking towards the Entei robot.

"Good, they must have chosen her to be the sacrificial Mareep, or should I say Skitty," Jessie cackled evilly. "Prepare to-"

Dawn raised her staff and an incredibly powerful beam of solar energy blasted down from the sun, smashing down on the robot from above and vaporizing it in a flash of heat and light. When the light faded, all that was left of the mecha was an extremely charred and blackened spot on the ground, bits of burnt scrap lying here and there. Team Rocket, fried crispy and yet somehow still alive, stood in the middle of this charred area, dazed and extremely burnt, most of their hair gone. It was amazing their uniforms were still somewhat intact, though almost burnt beyond recognition. Growly lay nearby, most of his fur burnt off but still wagging and panting happily. He barked. Dawn smiled. "Well, that was easy."

May had gone pale. "That.that was.horrible!" She found herself imagining being blasted by a similar burst of solar energy if she somehow failed her new masters, and shuddered in terror.

Violet groaned. "Great, we're gonna have to clean up that too."

"Maybe not," Daisy said, an evil look in her eyes. "Do you think the Mistress will hire them?"

"Ooh, that's a great idea!" Lily said ecstatically. "Of course, I can't imagine they'll want to be.but then again, I suppose it's better than Mistress or Master killing them!" The three sisters cackled like evil witches, creeping May and Tracey out.

"Are we still alive?" James asked faintly.

"We have to be," Meowth said deadpan. "I don't think I'd hurt this much if I were dead."

"My.hair." Jessie sobbed. "My.beautiful.hair.all.gone!" Naturally, most of her hair had gotten burnt off due to the solar blast, so now she was somewhat bald. James and Meowth privately thought it was an improvement, but didn't say so.

The gods (and Brock) walked over to Team Rocket. "So, what should we do with them?" Dawn asked.

"Pika!" Kill them! Roared Pikachu.

"Chop off their hands?" Ash suggested. Misty glared at him. "What?! It's the punishment for thieves, and they're thieves if nothing else! They've tried to nab Pikachu and lots of other Pokemon hundreds of times!"

"You could lock them in the dungeon of eternal torture and punish them there forever," Mew said cheerfully.

They stared at her. "I'm not even sure we have a dungeon of eternal torture," Misty said after a moment.

"Let's eat them!" Ta-Hotep said eagerly, causing Team Rocket's eyes to widen in fright. They would have run, but they were sort of stiffened and suffering from tenth-degree burns, so moving wasn't really an option.

Brock shook his head. "I'm not cooking that. Any meat coming from those three would be spoiled rotten and taste horrible."

"Hey, I do not taste horrible!" Jessie yelled angrily.

"Ah, Jessie, don't give them any encouragement." James said anxiously.

Misty crossed her arms. "I am tempted to kill them, yes.but I am not a cruel goddess. I shall put their fate in their own hands." She crouched down so Meowth could get a good look at her. "Meowth, when last we met, you had no idea who I was. Do you have a better idea now?" She spread her arms. "Does my family seem at all familiar to you?"

Meowth stared at her for a moment blankly. Then he glanced at Ash, Dawn, Ta-Hotep, Brock, Mew, the others back on the steps, and Misty again. His eyes widened in astonishment. "You're the twerps!" Misty sweatdropped as her family facefaulted behind her.

"Well, at least he's half right, that's something," Mew said reassuringly to Misty, patting her on the shoulder. "I was expecting him to get it completely wrong."

"Wait, the twerps?!" Jessie cried incredulously. "But-but how did they become such big.hairy.cat things?!"

"And such handsome ones at that," James observed, glancing at Ash and making him rather uncomfortable.

Misty sighed in exasperation, giving up being patient. "That would be because I'm the reincarnation of Bast, you idiot! Does that ring a bell?!"

From the way Meowth's eyes widened in horror and his face paled under all the soot covering it, she knew it did. "Oh, fudge," the not-very-bright cat cursed. "Bast?! As in, Queen Bast, immortal goddess and ruler of all cat Pokemon?! I thought you were just a myth! Or dead!"

"I got better," Misty growled.

"And-and that means." Meowth glanced at the others. "The big boy there's your husband, Leono, the hot babe's Sekhmet, and the kid's.uh.what's his name again?"

"Ta-Hotep," Ta-Hotep offered helpfully.

"Yeah, that," Meowth said. He laughed nervously and, ignoring how much his bones creaked and his muscles complained, he manage to force his burnt body to prostrate before Misty. "H-hail Bast! Uh, h-hey, um, really sorry about not r-recognizing you or your pals earlier. And for talking about giving you to the Boss and making you mate with his Persian. Y-you wouldn't kill me for all that, would you? I mean, you're such a kind.loving.FORGIVING AND MERCIFUL.deity, right? Plus, you wouldn't hurt a cute little fella like me, would you?" He smiled weakly, showing a mouth full of cracked and broken teeth. His smile became more strained when he saw Misty wasn't buying it. He got desperate. "PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!" he screamed. "You can kill the other two though, it was all their idea, I just went along for-er, I mean, they made me do it! Yeah! I would never do stuff like this if they didn't force me to!"

"What?!" Jessie screamed, enraged.

"Meowth, how could you?!" James said angrily.

"Hey, in this world you always gotta look out for number one, and that's what Meowth is doing!" Meowth snapped back. "This is a god we're talking to here, they can only be appeased by a human sacrifice, and last time I checked the both of you were human!"

"Wrong pantheon," Dawn said.

Meowth blinked. "Huh?"

"We're Pokegyptian. While we accept sacrifices of food and occasionally dead Pokemon, we don't eat humans. You're thinking of the gods in Mesoamerica," Dawn explained.

"Oh," Meowth said.

"I'm rather insulted that you think we'd eat humans, though!" Ash said angrily.

"Yeah, especially ones as yucky as you," Ta-Hotep said, deciding he didn't want to eat Team Rocket after all. This relieved Brock, for he didn't really want to cook them.

"Eh heh, that's not an insult worth KILLING over, is it?" Meowth said anxiously, feeling his life slipping away before his eyes. "Uh, maybe I should just stop talking altogether."

"A wise decision," Misty agreed. "And I will allow you to make another decision: your choice of punishment for having tried to capture us, insulting us, trying to catch Pikachu a million times, and for generally harassing us on an almost daily basis for the last few years." She smiled, enjoying the looks of sheer terror on their faces. "Now, here are your options. One: we could kill you." The idiot trio swallowed hard when they heard that. "Two: we could let you go." They relaxed. "After chopping off your hands." They looked terrified again, especially when Ash grinned at them evilly. "Three: We lock you in the dungeon of eternal torture for.I don't know.a few years?"

"I thought you didn't have a dungeon of eternal torture," Mew commented.

Misty glared at her friend. "Shut up, Mew, we can always build one. And option four: I make you into my slaves, and you will serve me until the day you die, or I get bored of you and throw you away. What will it be?"

Team Rocket glanced at each other uneasily. "None of those choices sound very good," James said finally.

"How about option five: we leave and you never hear from us again?" Jessie asked hopefully.

Misty grinned, showing her pointed teeth. "That was never an option. Unless by 'leave', you mean we get to chop off your hands first."

The fools paled in fright. Meowth laughed nervously and said, "Well then, ah, I guess it'll have to be number four: serving you forever."

"What?! Meowth, what are you-" Jessie started.

He grabbed her by the shoulder and whispered into her air, ignoring how much both of their bodies screamed in pain at this motion. "It's better than dying or being tortured for a few years. When the time is right, we'll steal whatever treasure they have, capture Pikachu and maybe the kid, then run off and give 'em to the boss! Simple!"

"I can hear you, you know," Misty said flatly, causing Meowth and Jessie to yelp and jump back, nearly tumbling over each other and falling into the moat. Much to Brock's disappointment, they stayed on their feet. "However, since you have made your choice, I will stand by it and give you what you asked for."

"Uh, Misty, is this a good idea?" Ash whispered to his wife. "Pikachu still thinks we should kill them."

"Pika." Definitely.

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing." Misty turned back to Team Rocket. "You have agreed to serve me until the day you die or I discard you, and I am holding you to that oath. It is binding, and if you break it, the consequences will be most severe, for it is never a wise idea to go back on a deal you've made with a god. Now, since you will be living among us, I will change you into forms more suitable to your new environment." She snapped her fingers, and all three of the thieves fell to the ground screaming in agony, writhing in pain as bones snapped and rejoined differently, muscles tore apart and wove back together differently, their skin stretched and shrank, their spines twisted out of alignment and into different shapes, and pretty much every part of them was subjected to a gruesome and horrifically painful transformation.

"W-what's happening to them?!" cried a horrified May.

"Oh, Mistress is changing them into her servants, just like she did to you and Tracey," Daisy explained.

"But-but she breathed in our mouths to do that, and it was painless and quick!" protested Daisy.

"That's because she breathed in your mouth. Mistress has the power to turn any human into a feline servant, but if she doesn't fill their lungs with divine wind the process is one of slow and excruciating agony. Since she is not overly cruel, she would only deny that wind to those whom she especially despises. She must really hate these three to make them suffer like this!" commented Lily.

"Oh," May said faintly. As the pained screams increased in volume, she turned greenish and threw up.

Violet glared at her. "You're gonna have to clean that up, you know."

"Fascinating," Tracey said idly, all his attention focused on sketching the fantastic transformation below.

Misty stood up and nodded, pleased with her work. Team Rocket lay in the soot, gasping for breath, covered in sweat and fur, their unbelievably painful transformation finally completed. "I think these forms suit them, don't you?" Misty commented to her family, who nodded in agreement.

James had become much shorter and much fatter, looking a lot like a smaller version of Brock but with longer ears sticking out of matted blue hair and wide-open eyes rather than slits. His skin was covered in dark blue-green fur that was pretty dirty, unsurprising since he was sweaty all over and had previously been nuked and heavily burnt by an intense beam of solar radiation. He was still wearing his Team Rocket uniform, but it was too big for him and rather tattered, leaving him clothed in filthy rags full of holes, a big one where the red 'R' for Rocket used to be. He was barefoot, as opposed to most of the other felines. "I'm.a Munchlax?" he whimpered when he was finally able to move without it hurting too much.

"Wow Brock, it's a Mini-you!" Ash joked.

Brock sweatdropped. "Great.what, am I supposed to adopt him or something?"

Jessie had become shorter and fatter as well, and was incredibly hideous. Her filthy fur was supposed to be blue and white, but because of all the dirt and grime it looked more like dark gray and lighter gray. She seemed top-heavy, her torso abnormally large with ugly sagging breasts that the soiled rags which used to be her Team Rocket uniform did little to hide. Her hips were abnormally large as well, her waist surprisingly skinny and looking almost crushed between the two halves of her body. Fat sagged off her arms and legs, causing them to jiggle a bit with every breath she took. Her hands and feet were surprisingly tiny and delicate in comparison to the rest of her body, though it was debatable whether she could do much with such shriveled hands. A long tail drooped out from her rear, loosely coiled like a broken spring or slinky and dragging on the ground behind her. Her face matched the rest of her body, rather grotesque with a mouth frozen in a perpetual sneer, showing yellowed and twisted teeth, bloodshot yellow eyes (one of which was larger than the other), a bulbous nose, and four crooked whiskers twisting out from her cheeks. Her ears were large and swooped upwards from the sides and top of her head, ending in feathery purple tips. For some reason, her red hair had grown back but didn't quite seem to match the proportions of her new form, so fell down her back in a tangled and dirty mass and dragged along the ground behind her. She was clearly some kind of deformed humanoid Purugly. Everyone looked at her in disgust and vague pity. "What? What'th wrong?" Jessie asked, lisping due to the way her new mouth was shaped. "Why'th everyone looking at me like that? Ith there thomething on my fathe?" She glanced in the water, screamed bloody murder upon seeing her own reflection, and passed out.

"Ew. I am not drawing that," Tracey said, shaking his head and crumpling up the piece of paper upon which he had started to draw the transformed Jessie. "I have my standards." May threw up again, and nobody blamed her.

"Ugh, I'm not working with that thing unless it wears a paper bag over its head," said a disgusted Lily.

"Or an iron mask," agreed Daisy.

"Mama, it's scaring me!" Ta-Hotep wailed, burying his face in his mother's skirt.

"Don't look dear, some things are too horrible for a child of your age to see just yet," Misty agreed, rubbing her son's hair sadly.

"Uh, Mom, why'd you make her so ugly?!" asked Dawn incredulously.

"I didn't mean to, honest," Misty protested. "I mean, I wanted her to be somewhat less than 'plain', but.well, sometimes the magic takes on a life of its own. I guess it wanted her appearance to reflect the true ugliness of her soul, or something."

"That's one butt-ugly soul," Brock said bluntly.

"Pikachu pika pika chupi kaka Pikachu," said Pikachu. Would have been better off killing her than turning her into that.

Meowth sat up and looked himself over anxiously. "Huh? Hey, why do I look exactly the same?"

"You don't," said James. "Your charm is gone."

"Whaaaat?!" Meowth screamed in horror. He titled his eyes upward and frantically ran his paws over his forehead, trying to find where his charm had gone. "Where is it?! Where's my lucky charm?!"

"I got rid of it," Misty said. "You don't deserve to have it. If you work hard and prove yourself trustworthy, you might give it back."

"If all you were going to do was take his charm away instead of transforming him, why'd you put him through such horrible pain?" asked a confused Ash.

"Because I wanted him to suffer," Misty said plainly.

"Oh, okay."

"Kachu!" Nice!

"Now that I have changed you, I shall assign you duties," Misty said. "James, can you cook?"

"No," James said. "If I could, do you really think we'd be starving all the time?"

"Hmm, good point. Well, I'm still going to put you in the kitchen with Brock since I can't think of anywhere better."

"Oh boy, food!" James said eagerly.

Brock grunted. "Great, looks like I am adopting him after all. Wonderful."

"I'm sure you'll make a great father figure, Brock," Dawn said reassuringly. "You've done so well raising Sudowoodo, after all!"

"I'd rather be a father to an actual son, not a Pokemon I picked up," the Snorlax complained.

"Oh, come now, it's not like you'll ever reproduce anyway," Mew said cheerfully. "Might as well adopt."

Brock glared at her. "Gee, thanks."

"I don't need a father, I already have one.and I'm a grown man!" James protested. Nobody paid attention to him.

"Meowth, I'm putting you under the supervision of Daisy, Lily, and Violet, since you really can't be trusted," Misty continued.

"Yay?" Meowth said uncertainly.

"And Jessie.we'll think of something suitable for her later. Probably cleaning in dark, dirty areas where nobody really goes very often," Misty said after a moment.

"I don't think she'll like that," commented James.

"That's the idea. Now, let's see, am I forgetting anything? Ah, right." Misty snapped her fingers again, and suddenly iron manacles and collars materialized on Team Rocket's wrists and necks. "These will force you to obey those superior to you, namely, just about everyone else. And." She concentrated, and glowing marks in the shape of cat's eyes branded themselves onto the trio's foreheads, causing Meowth and James to yelp in pain as their flesh was burnt. "These Marks of Shame will designate you as untrustworthy servants under constant surveillance. If you ever perform a disloyal and disobedient act like stealing jewelry and silverware or failing to do the chores allotted to you, those Marks will electrify you. They will do the same if you contemplate murdering or capturing any of us, or trying to escape."

"But that's not fair!" protested Meowth.

"Of course it's not, that's the point. If you can prove yourselves worthy of our trust, the marks will be removed. It'll probably only take a few decades, though." Meowth and James looked at each other unhappily.

"Welcome to the first day of the rest of your lives! Isn't it great?" Mew asked cheerfully.

"Yay," Meowth and James said deadpan.

"Pikachuuuuuuuu!" Pikachu cried, electrifying Meowth, James, and Jessie, causing them to scream and writhe and wake the Purugly up. Ta-Hotep laughed, because their pain was funny.

"Why did you do that?" Ash asked Pikachu.

The mouse shrugged. "Pi Pikachu." Force of habit

Meowth growled. "Someday I'm gonna eat that rodentyeaaaAAARRRRGGHHHH!" he screamed as the mark on his forehead lit up, electrifying him and filling his body with horrible pain. "Or maybe not," he said weakly, coughing up smoke.

"What's going on?" Jessie asked, very dazed. "I dreamed I became hideously ugly.."

"You did," said Dawn, averting her eyes. "It wasn't a dream."

"Don't worry," Mew said, pulling a big mean-looking iron mask out of nowhere and slamming it down over Jessie's head, locking it into place and feeding the key to James. "You'll never have to see your face again, and neither will anyone else!"

"Yay?" Jessie said faintly, still dazed and confused.

Misty clapped her hands, calling her other servants over. "Daisy, Lily, Violet, please escort our new staff to their quarters."

"Yes, Mistress," Lily said, picking up Meowth and cuddling him in her arms, much to his distaste. "Aren't you a cutie! We are going to have so much fun!"

"You're the kind of girl who likes putting ribbons and frilly things on poor helpless Pokemon like myself, aren't you?" Meowth asked unhappily.

"Uh-huh!" Lily purred, rubbing her cheek against his.

Meowth groaned. "I hate my life."

"I'll take you where you're supposed to go, but don't touch me," Violet said to the masked Jessie. "I don't wanna get your ugly all over me."

"I'm not ugly!" protested Jessie, stumbling after Violet as she headed back across the bridge.

Violet sighed and shook her head sympathetically. "Poor thing, you're in denial. We'll fix that soon enough."

"I don't suppose you could pick me up?" James asked Daisy hopefully.

She raised an eyebrow. "Uh, right. You've got to be weighing, what, three hundred pounds? More?"

"Er.I suppose I have been putting on a little weight." James said sheepishly, glancing down at his rather large stomach.

"Yeah. A little. Right. So.I'm afraid you're gonna have to walk on your own little two feet. That's what they're there for," Daisy said pointedly.

James anxiously looked at how far he would have to walk just to reach the front door. "But it's so far to walk on these stubby little legs!"

"Tell me about it," said Brock.

"Don't worry," Daisy said cheerfully. "You'll walk off all that excess weight in no time!"

James sweatdropped. "Wonderful." he grumbled, walking after her as she left. "Wait, what about Growly?" Gyarados surged out of the water, grabbed the burnt canine in its jaws, and dragged it back into the depths. James sagged. "Oh. Never mind."

"Well, that was fun," Dawn said. "Now what?"

"Now we get the present!" Ta-Hotep said eagerly.

"Oh, right! Almost forgot," Mew said. "My housewarming gift!" She flew up into the air and gestured, causing the sun to abruptly set in the west, the moon rising from the east as the sky turned dark and stars appeared in the sky.

"Nice illusion," Tracey complimented, very impressed.

Mew blinked. "Illusion?"

"That wasn't an illusion, Tracey, she actually sped up the planet's rotation so we wouldn't have to wait several hours for our side of the world to be facing away from the sun," Misty told the artist.

Tracey's eyes bulged. May gaped in astonishment. "She can do that?!"

"Duh," said Mew. "I can do anything."

Pikachu shook his head in amazement. "Pikachu." Wow.

"That's pretty cool," Ash said. "So, what are you trying to show us?"

Mew floated to the side and indicated a small grouping of stars, causing them to light up somewhat brighter than the others in the night sky. "Okay, see these stars here? The ones that, if you draw imaginary lines between them, forms a constellation that looks sort of like a cat curled up and gazing down at you from above?" She demonstrated by drawing in the air, causing white lines to appear in the sky connecting the glowing stars and creating a shape which, if you filled in the space around it with your imagination, could easily be thought of as looking like a cat looking down at them.

"Yeah," said Dawn.

"What about them?" asked Brock.

"Um, those lines are an illusion, and not you actually connecting stars by some sort of giant plasma flow, right?" Tracey asked nervously.

"Yes. Anyway, those stars weren't up there last night," Mew said. "I put 'em up in the sky a few hours ago as a 'welcome back' present to my bestest buddy Bast! Well, actually, a few hours ago I got Celebi to take me back in time several thousand years so that I could ignite those stars back then, since I estimated it would take about that long for the light from those stars to reach our world in the present. I seeded life around those stars too, so a few million years from now some of the planets up there might have a rudimentary civilization. Unless I go back sooner and stir things up so they'll get started faster. I do that sometimes."

They stared at her. Even the gods looked stunned by Mew's accomplishment. May fainted, overcome by the feat of imagining just how powerful Mew had to be to do something like that. "Wait," Brock said finally. "You mean to tell us that you traveled in time."

"And brought a number of stars into being." continued Dawn.

"Just to create a constellation as a present for me?!" cried the astonished Misty. "That's.that's.that's incredible. I don't think anyone's ever done anything that sweet for me, EVER! Oh, thank you!" She threw her arms around the pink kitten and hugged her gleefully.

"Dang," said a stunned Tracey.

"Wow," said an amazed Ash, staring up at the new (relatively speaking) constellation.

"Pika," said Pikachu. Definitely.

"Dad, you're gonna have to come up with something really good to top this for Mama's next birthday," Ta-Hotep said to his father. "Not to mention your anniversary."

Ash groaned and put his face in his hands. "You're right.somehow I don't think jewelry, poetry, or a night of wild sex will quite overcome this."

Dawn sighed wistfully. "Now I'm jealous. Is there anyone in the universe who will ever give me a constellation as a sign of friendship or love?"

"Thank you very much," Misty said, crying happily as she let go of Mew and took her by the hands. "This is the best welcome-back gift I could possibly imagine!"

"It's about to get better," Mew said, waving at the sky and causing the moon to set and the sun to rise again until it was at the same position it had been just a few minutes ago.

"Is this going to seriously mess up people and Pokemon's schedules and biological clocks the world over?" Tracey asked uneasily.

"No dear, I took those into account before speeding up the planet's rotation," said Mew. "Anyway, look up there, above the garden on the roof! There's the next part of my gift."

They turned and looked around, shading their eyes so they wouldn't be blinded by the glare from the sunlight reflecting off the gold tips of the obelisks growing from the roof. To their amazement, there was an enormous radiant blue bird flying in circles over the palace, leaving sparkles and a rainbow trail in its wake. "Wow!" gasped an astonished Ta-Hotep. "It's a blue phoenix!"

"Those are supposed to be really good luck, right?" Dawn asked her mother.

Misty nodded. "Yes, according to Pokegyptian lore, if you see a blue phoenix flying in the air at the beginning of a new king or queen's reign, it's a sign that their rule shall be a prosperous one. Not necessarily peaceful, but certainly very prosperous."

"Well, that sounds like a good sign for us," Brock said. "Er, you, since you're ruling and I'm.you know.just a cook."

"It's pretty," said May, having woken back up a few minutes ago.

"I've gotta get this down!" Tracey said, rapidly drawing the phoenix. He paused in mid-sketch, glancing at the details he had captured, then looked back up at the phoenix, trying to figure out why the blue bird's features seemed so familiar. "Hey, wait a minute.isn't that Ho-Oh?"

The others blinked, and took a closer look. "Hey, yeah!" Ash said after a moment. "I think it is!" Reflexively he, Dawn, and May whipped out their Pokedexes, which apparently they had kept with them despite being transformed, although they were now more ornate and had hieroglyphs engraved into them.

"Ho-Oh, the Rainbow Pokemon," said Ash and Dawn's Pokedexes. "Its feathers are in seven colors. It is said that anyone seeing it is promised eternal happiness."

"Ho-Oh, the Rainbow Pokemon," said May's Pokedex. "Its feathers-which glow in seven colors depending on the angle at which they are struck by light-are thought to bring joy. It is said to live at the foot of a rainbow."

"Haha, yours is out of date!" Ta-Hotep mocked in sing-song.

"At least I have one," May said, sticking her tongue out at him.

"Um." Ta-Hotep tugged on his father's kilt. "Dad, can I have a Pokedex?"

"Maybe later, son," Ash said, looking somewhat puzzled by the fact that Ho-Oh was here and was blue instead of some other color.

"If Ho-Oh is supposed to be seven colors, why is it all blue?" asked a confused Brock.

Mew whistled innocently and hid a paintbrush with dried blue paint on the end behind her back. It hadn't been easy convincing the big bird to let her paint him, but when she threatened to release certain very embarrassing pictures from the last Legendary Christmas party to the public, Ho-Oh had been more than willing to comply. "Well, I should be going now, I have important business to attend to, by which I mean I need to fudge Mewtwo to try and show him the meaning of life."

There was a pause. ".Wait, you can figure that out through sex?!" cried an amazed Tracey.

"Well, if you do it the right way, then yes," said Mew.

"I KNEW IT!" Brock rejoiced.

"Mama, what does 'fudge' mean?" Ta-Hotep asked his mother.
"Ah, we'll talk about it later," Misty said quickly.

"Now, you should all head inside, I've just allowed everyone in town to notice that a giant palace has appeared out of nowhere and made them curious to see what's going on. You should all get ready before then so you can properly greet your subjects as their new rulers. If you make a bad impression, they might not be willing to receive you, and you could have a revolt on your hands. And those are always nasty to put down," Mew commented.

"We could crush it with force," Ash said. "Or just make them stop. You know, change all of them and make them serve us. Wouldn't be that hard."

"Oh, sure, you could do that, but that wouldn't really set a good example now, would it?" Mew pointed out. "Just remember that the world's a bit of a different place now than it was five thousand years ago. What you used to rule then might not necessarily work now. But if you can adapt to the present, you should be okay, and keep from having the rest of Kanto declare war on you. Good luck! I'll be watching!" She waved cheerfully and teleported away, after mending the area where the Entei robot had been totally destroyed so no damage was visible. The servants would thank her for that later.

"Uh, was that supposed to discourage us?" Ash asked awkwardly after Mew was gone.

"No, I think she was just trying to warn us that governing a state isn't easy, now more than ever," Misty said. "I'm not worried. We can handle it. If we were able to handle Apep, we can handle being monarchs in the modern age too."

"Uh, didn't Apep kill us?" Dawn pointed out.

"Yes, but note that we're here and he isn't, therefore we must have done something right," Misty said calmly.

They started heading back towards the palace gates. "Hey, do you think any of the others survived?" Ta-Hotep asked.

"The other gods? Well, I guess it's possible," Ash admitted. "Heck, if we were able to come back, what's to stop them from returning too? We'll have to keep an eye out for anything like that.as the first back, we owe it to any others who might have survived to reincarnate as well!"

"Do you think any of them would be interested in me?" Dawn asked hopefully.

"Or me?" Brock asked desperately.

"I'm sure there will be," Misty said. "There's plenty of deities who would be happy to marry a lovely young woman like yourself, Dawn. And Brock.well, there are some women who like their men big, and even more who like men that can cook, so surely there's hope for you too."

"That makes me almost feel good about being stuck in a Snorlax body," Brock said happily.

May glanced at Ta-Hotep uneasily. And I wonder if I, or Mom and Dad, will ever feel all right after what we've lost.I've lost my dreams and my brother, and they've lost their son. Can our world ever be right again after all that? She certainly hoped it could. Otherwise, all their sacrifices would have been for nothing.

Tracey was much more optimistic about all the changes that had occurred so far. He was comfortable with his new body, happy with his surroundings, and eager to get in on the ground floor of a new age. His mind was already brimming with the pieces of art he could fill this new kingdom with.

"So, think we'll be okay?" Ash asked Misty as they reached the top of the stairs.

"Hmm?" she said.

"You know, with what Mew said. I'm still a little worried," Ash said, pulling open the doors and allowing the others to go through first, Brock puffing and a little red in the face from climbing up all the stairs. "She's right, this world isn't the same as the one we once ruled a part of a long time ago. Even with everything we know about the present from our latest incarnations, can we still do this thing without messing up?"

She smiled and took his face in her hands. "Hey," she said. "If we could find each other again, in this lifetime, after being separated for five thousand years and all the many incarnations between then and now, I'm sure we can handle whatever the future throws at us." She kissed him then, their lips joining for what felt like far too short a time before she broke off and went inside.

Ash blinked after her, a little dazed. Pikachu giggled on his shoulder. Ash snorted and glared at him. "At least I have a girlfriend. Unless you're going to start paying more attention to Bunneary?"

Pikachu was unfazed. Well, since I'm the favorite Pokemon and practical 'brother' of a god, I'm sure women will be swarming all over me soon enough. Would it be a problem if I started a harem?

Ash laughed as they went inside. "If you think you can get away with it without all the women tearing each other-or you-apart, more power to you, buddy, more power to you!" The door closed behind him.

Taking Mew's advice well to heart, Ash and Misty did their best to rule justly and fairly in the new world. The city of Cerulean was thrilled to have the prestige of honest-to-goodness ancient Pokegyptian deities living among and ruling over them, since it would certainly make the town a bigger tourist attraction than just being home to the Sensational Waterflower Sisters. The government of Kanto and the Pokemon League were not thrilled to hear that Cerulean was seceding itself from the rest of the country and declaring itself a sovereign power, especially since it meant the League would have to make some other out-of-the-way gym one of 'the' places to go to earn one of the eight requisite badges necessary to compete in the annual tournament. The army, led by Lt. Surge, attempted to storm the city, but the power of the ruling gods held them off and converted the invading forces to their cause, turning them into cat-people subservient to the divine king and queen and adding their might to the city-state's burgeoning development. They also conquered Vermilion City to the south, the converted Surge leading the charge himself in a bloodless coup and adding the city to the small growing empire. After seeing this, the government and the League was more than willing to negotiate terms with the newly named kingdom of 'Ailuria'. The small country came off pretty well in the bargain, mainly because the government of Kanto was terrified that Queen Bast would kill them or turn them into her servants if they pissed her off. The small kingdom became very prosperous as a result, and the two cities of Cerulean and Vermilion eventually expanded to the point where they merged together into one great capitol and city-state. The rulers of Ailuria were confident that in a few centuries their influence would have expanded enough to bring the rest of Kanto into their fold peacefully as well. Now if only those archaeologists would stop pestering them for information about what life was really like in Pokegypt thousands of years ago.

The royal palace became open as a place for people all over Kanto to come if they had nowhere else to go, and soon they had more than enough staff to manage the place properly, and then some. Plenty of stray Pokemon were made welcome as well, and soon the many chambers, gardens, and pools of the palace became full of life, the stone halls echoing with laughter and voices as the palace became a veritable city-within-a-city, a true capitol for the budding nation.

Ash and Dawn's mothers both moved in to the royal palace to live with their children, though it took Ayako a bit longer than Delia to get used to her child being a god, and still longer to get used to the fact that Dawn now had a second mother. Still, she managed, just as Delia managed to frequently embarrass Ash in front of his friends and servants. Both of them became Glameow, with the promise that they would never, ever become Puruglies.

Misty made good on her promise to reward Norman by showering him and Caroline with riches and turning him into a Persian-man so that he would be better able to relate to Ta-Hotep on his visits and perhaps feel a bit closer to the boy who had once been his son. (It also helped him make up a bit with Caroline. They're currently trying for a new child.)

May never became fully comfortable with her new place in life, but did the best she could to do her job well. Ta-Hotep became very fond of her, and she of him, and in time the pain of knowing he had once been her brother lessened somewhat as she got to know the god he had become a bit better. Although she never really liked it when he turned her into a full Skitty just to play with her, especially since her Skitty was always trying to make love to her whenever she was stuck in that form and Ta-Hotep forgot to change her back. Things became a bit better for her, though, when her old rival and crush Drew quit coordinating and got a job in the palace as a court entertainer.

Daisy, Violet, and Lily are still Misty's loyal servants, and seem to be happy that way. The men they bed occasionally are just as happy. Is one of them the court artist Tracey, famous throughout the land for his masterful works of art? Well, what do you think?

Brock is still a Snorlax running the palace kitchen and dabbling in breeding the Pokemon living in the palace when he can. He has yet to find a girlfriend, but he's still looking.

Team Rocket is doing about as well as expected. They have yet to show themselves trustworthy (or competent) enough to have the Mark of Shame removed, just as Jessie is still too ugly and vindictive to have her iron mask taken off. Meowth and James have found a bit more happiness, Meowth because he's become oddly popular among the many other cat Pokemon living in the palace, and James because he's never hungry anymore now that he works in the kitchen. Now if only May's Munchlax would stop stalking him.

Dawn left for Sinnoh to renew her dreams of being a master Pokemon coordinator, with her parent's blessings. May felt envious, but knew she couldn't leave Ta-Hotep's side. Imagine her surprise when Ta-Hotep decided to travel along with her sister, and so May of course had to go to. It was invigorating to go on a Pokemon journey again, even if she didn't really get to accomplish much on her own other than bonding with the two royal siblings. And while she wished it was her receiving the Ribbon Cup at the end of the Sinnoh Grand Festival, not the princess, she still gave Dawn her sincerest congratulations.

As it turned out, some of the other Pokegyptian gods had survived and managed to reincarnate themselves. It was later discovered that Ash's Totodile was the reincarnation of the Feraligatr god Sobek, Oak was the reincarnation of the wise scribe god Thoth, the late Lucario Ash had befriended at the Tree of the World's Beginning was the reincarnation of the death god Anubis (which made a lot of sense, since he was dead now), that asshole Paul was Set, Jessie's old Arbok was the cobra-headed Wadjet, and a great many others came forth in the days to come as well.

Pikachu also sort of became the incarnation of a god, though not a Pokegyptian one, after finding an old hammer someone had dropped in the forest out in the middle of nowhere and becoming the new avatar of Thor, god of Thunder. It didn't really make him look any different other than getting a neat winged hat and slightly boosted electric powers, but it made his vast harem of adoring female Pokemon love him even more.

Mewtwo has yet to find the meaning of life. Not for lack of trying, anyway.

Mew's still the blissful and enlightened, happy-go-lucky, scarily omnipotent adorable kitty she's always been. Not much of a surprise, really. Though she's considering swapping genders again in the near future.

Ash and Misty are happy as can be. Their life is good, their kids are great, the kingdom's doing swell, they're both in excellent shape (as is their relationship and sex life), and neither is aware that Apep has been reborn as well and is lying dormant, but will one day soon awaken and threaten everything they cherish once again.

The End?