Pokémon
Implant – A Pokémon story by BenRG
Legal Disclaimer
Pokémon, the Pocket Monsters and their human friends and enemies are all the legal property of Nintendo Entertainment, Game Freak Software and 4Kids Productions. No breach of any copyright or trademark intended. This is a non-profit work for free distribution through the Internet.
Author's Notes
Okay, now this is why I'm writing this…
I was surfing around the Net yesterday and came across a very interesting and angst-filled Pokémon romance. Basically, in a moment of passion and enthusiasm, Ash and Misty have sex. Unfortunately, Misty falls pregnant as a result and it very nearly destroys Ash and Misty's relationship, friendship and it comes very close to smashing their souls and spirits.
It is a sad tale, one that is repeated throughout the real world with depressing regularity amongst teenage lovers. Why aren't they careful? Well, partly there is a certain teen arrogance that translates as 'it couldn't happen to me.' Equally important, a hormonal teen is not going to think rationally about contraception when he/she is in the full blaze of pubescent passion.
But, you see, I don't think it would happen to Ash and Misty if they became lovers, and here is why.
In the Pokémon world, you have dozens, possibly hundreds, of groups of kids, or single kids, wandering around the continent from the age of ten. These youngsters are going to be growing up on the road. They will go into puberty and experience the trials and tribulations of becoming a teenager far from home. In all probability, the only adults they will spend time with are the Gym Leaders and the Head Nurses at the Pokémon Centres. Strangers. Not the sort of people with whom you discuss the intimate secrets of your body and your secret passion for that girl who has been tagging along with your group of Novices for the last four years.
The League has been around for a long time, and I am sure that their legal people know only too well that they are effectively loco parentis, the responsible authority for the safety of these youngsters. And this includes emotional safety. How damaging is teenage pregnancy along with the awful possibility of an abortion? Well, you don't need me to tell what the news media is only to willing to describe.
The League will certainly not want to be liable for all those 'Pain and Mental Anguish' lawsuits. I have no doubt that Novices receive sex education lessons at League-mandated lessons at the Pokémon Centres. I am sure they know the technical bits. But if in our world teenagers carry on despite sex education in schools, how much more so must a pair of teenage Novices, who are still on an adrenaline high after capturing a rare Pokémon, or winning a Gym Badge, or blasting off Team Rocket yet again?
No, regrettable as it may seem, the League cannot trust in the discretion of a pair of hormonal teens. They would have to have some arrangement to prevent disaster from overcoming Novices time and time again. What is it? The only possible course for the League to take sounds like something from A Brave New World or 1984. It is not a pretty story, or a particularly nice thing to do, but it is the only thing the League can do to protect its' novices from themselves and from having to face the harshness of adulthood too quickly.
I should warn you that this is going to be a rather explicit fic in terms of describing body parts and their functions. I do not do this to titillate but simply to give as clear and unambiguous a description of how I think the League is working to prevent Misty (and Duplicia, Gary's Cheerleaders, and every female Novice) from getting pregnant at just 13 or 14…
Censor: R (Extreme Caution Recommended)
Ages: Ash is 13; Misty is 14; Brock is 18
Continuity: This is an "Avenger" alternate universe story, but it could fit into just about any continuity where Ash and Misty haven't acknowledged their love by this point.
The Fic
"Okay, next!" There was a long pause and Nurse Joy of the Celadon City Pokémon Centre looked around in annoyance. "I said 'Next!'"
Misty Waterflower grinned and nudged her best friend, Ash Ketchum in the ribs. Ash grimaced nervously and got up. He, Misty and Brock had just returned from their most ambitious Journey to date. Ash had collected dozens of new Pokémon and had, at last, won the Indigo Division Championships, putting him on course at last to becoming a Master Trainer. After winning two Challenge Clusters, a Challenge Cup and now a Division Championship in the last four years, it was somehow disheartening that the spoils were nothing but his biannual League Physical. The League knew what risks Novices and Trainers experienced on the roads and went to some lengths to keep them healthy.
"Have fun, Ash!" Misty said. Ash rolled his eyes and drew in a deep breath before setting out across the waiting room, which was suddenly larger than the Indigo Plateau. Misty was more than a little glad that Ash was going first. She hated her annual Physical with a passion. The 'Six Month Service,' as Brock flippantly described it, always made her feel a little dirty; especially the internal exams.
Trying not to look nervous, scared or anything else immature, Ash slouched across the room to the perpetually cheerful Nurse Joy. "Alright, son, come in," she said in a reassuring tone that Ash always categorised as 'Maternal.'
Joy closed the door and gestured to a small area screened off with movable curtains. "Okay, son, you can change in there." Ash tried not to blush at the thought of stripping naked in front of a strange woman. This was an issue that was getting more and more troublesome for him. He was no fool, and he understood those lessons he had to attend at the Centres across Johto. He knew that his body was awakening from childhood. The proof was how his subconscious reacted last night to his inadvertently seeing Misty taking her bath in a lake just outside the city the day before…
Ash felt his body react to the image that blazed in his mind. Damn it, no, he thought and clamped down on the reaction as best as he could. The last thing he wanted Nurse Joy to see was that… Then again, he realised with humour, she probably saw it a lot, and she would again, especially when she had to examine Brock. Ash could almost hear the pleas: 'Oh Joy, I love you!'… Heh. The humour inherit in the thought tranquillised his young body, and Ash was able to change into the open-backed green hospital gown without any more problems.
"Are you finished yet?" Joy asked. She was pulling on disposable rubber gloves, suddenly a necessity again after the emergence of HIV-8 earlier last year. Even in this year of 2064, a panacea for all humanity's ills was as far off as ever. "Come on, Ash," Joy chided him, "it isn't as if you haven't had a full exam before."
Ash sat on the examining table. Yeah, he thought, but I haven't been entering puberty before, have I?
Joy looked at Ash's medical file on the LCD display of her palm-top computer. "You're going to be 14 next month, right?" she asked.
"Yes, Ma'am," Ash replied.
Joy sighed. She hated doing exams at this time of male novices' lives. She hated doing the exams on female novices when they hit 12 too. She stepped forward with a tongue depressor. "Right, we'll start with your teeth and work our way on to your eyes and ears, okay?" Ash nodded.
Finally, after being measured, weighed and having every one of his body's systems thoroughly tested for their health, Nurse Joy finally reached the point that Ash dreaded. "Okay," Joy said. "Bend over please."
Ash grimaced and blushed, but he complied. He felt totally exposed and vulnerable. He felt the cold air blowing against his buttocks and his scrotum. Suddenly there was a metallic pressure that stopped just short of being painful, and he grunted unhappily. Joy had just pushed an anal probe through his sphincter muscle. "Okay, that's the rectal sample done," Joy announced. She leaned closer and examined the boy… no he was definitely becoming a young man… Anyway, she checked his penis and scrotum. They both seemed to be developing normally. "Ash, cough for me, will you?" Ash complied and Joy was able to note with satisfaction that his testicles had dropped to their adult position properly.
"Okay, Ash," she said, "this is going to feel unpleasant, but you've got to stay still, okay?"
That was something new. Ash gripped his ankles. Hey, I've won two Challenge Clusters, he told himself, trying to bolster his rock-bottom morale. How bad can it be? He learnt a second later. There was a needle-like pain in his scrotum that made him bite his lip in surprise. The pain stopped and Ash let out a gasp. Then the pain began again, this time over the other testicle. Ash felt tears prick in his eyes and he whimpered a little in pain.
"I'm sorry, Ash," Joy said quietly. "I know that hurt, but you were very brave." Joy moved away. "You can stand up now, by the way," she added with amusement in her voice.
Just so long as she doesn't give me a lollypop, Ash thought. He stood up and sat on the examination table.
Joy was just loading two small sample glasses into a machine at the back of the examination room. The machine bleeped for a moment and Joy frowned at the results. Ash felt incredibly nervous. What was this all about? Finally, Joy turned around. "Well, Mr. Ketchum," she said, "you will be glad to know that you are going to be a completely normal adult human male."
Ash noted the significance in her changing her mode of address from 'Ash' to 'Mr. Ketchum.' Adult stuff, he surmised. He tried to arrange his boyish face into a semblance of maturity.
"Your testicles are both producing sperm at a normal rate," Joy continued. "No genetic defects are obvious at this level of investigation and your semen gland is functioning normally." Joy sighed and sat down. "There is now absolutely no biological reason why you cannot start fathering children immediately, and that means that we are going to have to have a little talk."
Ash was shocked at Joy's sudden candour. "Well, I'm not planning to be a father just yet," Ash said, trying to smile. The attempt at humour fell as flat as a defeated Muk.
"I'm glad," Joy said with a warm smile. "You see, despite what your body thinks, you are not even close to being emotionally or mentally ready for such a responsibility." Joy sighed and regarded the nervous young Trainer for a moment. "But you and I both know that accidents happen. Put two teenagers together under the right circumstances and…" Joy's voice trailed away for a moment. "Bang! You have an unwanted baby, two shattered hearts, broken dreams and devastated souls."
"Nurse Joy, what is this about?" Ash asked, trying to keep his voice steady.
"When you become a teenager, the changes in your body's hormone balances inevitably cloud your judgement," Joy explained. "You would have learnt this in the SE classes you had to take over the last year. You are inevitably going to feel attracted to people of the opposite sex and your… shall we call it 'teen heat?' Well, it will make it nearly impossible for you to make a rational and informed choice about sex and how to take the appropriate precautions."
Ash was blushing a bright red at Joy's candour by now. However, the real cause of his embarrassment was that dream that he had last night. It had terrified him with its explicit sexual content and made him feel dirty and evil that his subconscious could even imagine his treating Misty that way… More horrible was the mess he made of his bedclothes and his pyjama trousers.
Joy suddenly stood up and touched Ash on the shoulder. "I can see it has already begun," she said sympathetically. "The ginger-haired girl I saw with you is your girlfriend?"
Ash shook his head in denial. "No," he said automatically and blushed even hotter. "I don't think so, anyway… I haven't thought about it but…"
"But she has suddenly started looking different," Joy completed for him. "You've been travelling with her for years and now you are seeing things in her that you never saw before. She has started appearing in dreams that have a sexual content." Ash hung his head in shame for being so easy to read. Joy smiled gently. "Don't feel ashamed, Ash," she said gently, pushing some of the untidy black hair out of his eyes, "as they said in the SE classes, it is just your body waking up. You don't have any control over this."
Joy sighed and turned away, looking at her diagnostic machines for a moment. "Unfortunately, what is happening to you has already happened to her," Joy said. "I wouldn't be surprised if she has dreams like that about you too, Mr. Ketchum."
"You think?" Ash blurted.
Joy laughed. "I am sure of it," she said, "no matter what she thinks of you. She probably has had similar dreams about any other male she is in regular contact with."
Ash tried to control it, but Joy saw the jealousy in his body language at that suggestion. She was reminded again why this was the only thing to do, not just on legal grounds, but for the benefit of these innocent children struggling to come to terms with impending adulthood.
"She will have just as hard a time as you controlling these urges," Joy explained. "Who knows? You two might be able to completely control yourselves and deny those urges until you are adults and have committed yourselves to each other forever. You might decide to become lovers and be clear-headed enough to always use physical contraceptives."
Ash thought about this carefully. He thought about how his increasing sexual attraction to Misty boiled within him. He also thought about how he had caught Misty looking at him some nights when she thought he was asleep. He thought about that song she sang about him. He thought about how Brock responded to Jennies and Joys throughout the Kanto Islands. He shook his head. He was no genius, but he knew perfectly well that if he and Misty went that far it would be shredded clothes and mad passion without any thought at all. "I don't think either of those things are very likely, Joy," he finally admitted. He had no idea what made him say that out loud, but it was true.
"I didn't think so," Joy said. She sat down. "You know, Ash, when girls are about her age, they are just as capable of conceiving children as fully mature women." This was news to Ash, he always imagined it took the body a few years to 'get up to speed.' "There is no reason whatsoever why she could not conceive your child the very first time you two have unprotected sex," Joy continued, "indeed, it is more likely than not."
Several contradictory thoughts collided in Ash's head. The first was amazement at this possibility. The second was an incredible rush of… some indefinable emotion… at the thought that he could be a father… by Misty! The third was horror, as he considered how having a child would affect their lives, how it would ruin Misty's dreams, and how they would both suffer if she decided to have an abortion.
Joy watched the turmoil on Ash's face with some compassion. "Perhaps you are thinking that it couldn't happen?" Joy asked. "Others believed that too. In 2040, five years after the League started allowing ten-year olds to become Novices, 65% of female Novices over 13 years old experienced unwanted pregnancies. That year there were hundreds of abortions and adoptions, hundreds of lawsuits by outraged parents and…" This last statistic was burned into Joy's mind. "And one hundred and twenty-three suicides, mostly single female Novices abandoned by the father of their unborn child, but in about a fifth of cases, joint suicides by teenage partners."
Ash was horrified, but he understood. If he hurt Misty like that… if she decided she wanted to die… well, he would be only a second or so behind her. "I don't hear about anything like that now," Ash said. "What has changed?"
Joy sighed. "In 2042, the League started a new program for all Novices," Joy replied. "It was the year after ICI International developed the sub-dermal Fertility Inhibiting Implant." Ash had heard of these devices in SE classes. Known as the 'chemical snip,' it was a unisex device implanted under the skin that effectively sterilised the user for as long as the device was kept supplied with the appropriate chemicals. "The League Commission passed a new rule that any Novice whose body had become sexually potent would have to have a FII Implant fitted immediately. The next year, the number of incidents of unplanned pregnancies among Novices dropped by 95%."
"Wow," Ash said. He had to admit it was an effective countermeasure. "So, why tell me this?" he added naively.
Joy sighed. "Ash, I already told you," she said. "You can become a father at any time now, so you must have an Implant fitted under League Regulation number 42/0178."
There was a long silence in the examination room. "I'm sorry?" Ash said gently.
Joy opened a box stacked up at the back of the room and pulled out a long object vacuum-wrapped in plastic. It looked like a metal pen-torch to Ash, about a centimetre in diameter and ten centimetres long. "This is one of them," Joy announced. "It is quite painless, a small incision in the groin by your penis, a little laser burn to seal the skin and you'll forget it's in there."
Ash felt incredibly offended for some reason. Joy was proposing neutering him like a pet cat! "And if I don't want that… thing… put in my body?" he asked angrily.
Joy looked at him levelly. "Then you will have your licence revoked, your Pokémon confiscated and you will be returned to your home immediately and never permitted to have anything to do with the League again," she said severely.
Ash's jaw dropped open. This is an outrage! He thought. I have rights! They can't force me to do this! "Look, I have legal rights," Ash began. "I can approve or reject any medical treatment. I have a choice…"
"Yes," Joy interrupted. "You can have the implant or you can give up being a Trainer." Ash looked ready to start ripping off heads, or maybe simply to burst into tears. Joy had seen it all before. She sighed. "Ash, believe me that the League didn't come to this decision easily. But too many young lives were being destroyed. You've admitted to me that you doubt that you could control yourself. Even if you thought you could, even if you definitely could, the rule would still stand. We can't risk both your lives on this." Joy shook her head, her voice filled with compassion. "Believe me, Ash, it is better for everyone this way."
"But it is stupid!" Ash protested. "Misty and I haven't even decided if we like each other, let alone love each other to that point! What if I dump her? Or she dumps me? Then there is no problem for you is there?" Ash was babbling. He knew that, but his outrage pushed him on. "Or… or… or maybe I could decide I'm gay! That would prevent teen pregnancy wouldn't it?"
Joy shook her head. She had heard it all before. "Would it?" she asked. "Think about this Ash. Let's say you go out there right now and dump Misty. Could you guarantee that you wouldn't meet another girl and fall in love? Perhaps in a moment of passion have sex with her? Or perhaps you could go out, and announce to the whole world that you are homosexual. Could you guarantee you wouldn't get drunk at a party and wake up in bed with a girl you don't recognise?" Ash stuck his jaw out stubbornly but, try as he might, he couldn't come up with one counter-argument. "You know you can't make that guarantee," Joy continued. "That is why all male novices over 14 and all female novices over 12 have a FII Implant. And yes, Ash, that includes those who travel on their own and those who are stated homosexuals."
Ash seemed to collapse in upon himself. "It's horrible," he whispered. Joy stroked his hair again, trying to comfort him. How can they force me to make this decision? He protested silently. It just isn't fair! Then he paused and realised that this was exactly why the League had this rule. He could barely think how he would handle such a situation. So the choice had been taken away from him. It was hardly democracy in action, but it was a hell of a lot safer. Even so, it was a terrible burden to drop on his young shoulders.
"Assuming I choose to go ahead," Ash said quietly, "and I haven't chosen so yet, what does this involve?"
"A ten minute operation under local anaesthetic right here in this room," Joy said. "It is painless and completely safe. After you have the implant in, you won't even notice it's there. There is only a small part that is above the skin."
"Uh, do you…" Ash said nervously.
"Yes I do," Joy confirmed. "Although as I have never been a Trainer, I had it fitted when I was sixteen and I decided I wanted to sleep with my boyfriend." Joy noticed that Ash was looking over his shoulder at the door and the waiting room beyond. "That's right," she said quietly. "Misty has had an implant too. So has any other male trainer you know over 14 and any female trainer you know over 12. It isn't such a big deal."
And they never mentioned it, Ash thought. Four years I've travelled with them. It's been two years since Misty must have had one of these damn machines put in her, and they never thought to tell me. Ash snorted to himself and decided he was being a rock-headed idiot yet again. Oh yeah, Ash, what were they supposed to say? 'Hey, Ash! Guess what? I've got a FII Implant in me and you will have too in a couple of years! Let's start to make out!' NOT! It isn't the sort of thing you discuss in mixed company. "Joy," Ash said thoughtfully.
"Yes Ash?"
"Why don't they tell us this before we start on our Journeys?"
"Can you imagine what that would be like?" Joy asked with a laugh. "Your average ten-year old thinks that everything to do with the opposite sex is icky! They wouldn't be able to stop giggling for a second. And the more conservative sections of society would go crazy at the League 'corrupting minors.'"
Ash laughed hollowly. Yeah, that was a valid point, all right. "Um… I assume that this is reversible?"
Joy nodded with a smile. "It is totally non-permanent," she assured him. "All you have to do is not refill the damn thing and it stops working after about a month of regular sex. Alternately you can go to your doctor and he can empty the spermicide reservoir immediately."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had decided. Really, he had no choice at all. "Okay," he said. "Let's do it."
Joy nodded gratefully. "Take off your apron, please Ash. Then lie down on the table."
Ash lay down, totally naked and as scared as he ever would be. Joy appeared over him and gave him an encouraging wink. "Misty is a very lucky girl," she said suggestively before pulling a sterile mask over her nose and mouth. There was a hum as a small shaver went to work on Ash's thin and wispy pubic hair. After a few moments he felt the unmistakable touch of a hypospray. Ash's lower body went numb almost instantly and Ash could feel nothing at all below the line of his waist.
However, his sense of smell was functioning perfectly and he could smell the unmistakable cooking-chicken scent of burning human flesh. A surgical laser was cutting into his body close to his manhood. "Right," Joy announced, "that's the incision open, now I'll proceed with placing the implant." She opened the vacuum pack and pulled out the metal implement.
"It looks… uh… kind of big," Ash said nervously.
"Don't fret, that's just the insertion sheath," Joy assured him. "The actual device is smaller and more flexible. It's made of stainless steel and silicon-based plastic, so there is no chance of an immune reaction." Ash didn't feel anything, of course, but he could see in his mind's eye the metal length slipping into his flesh. The comparison to rape continually flashed across his thoughts.
A few minutes passed while Ash lay there and tried to count the little holes in the acoustic tiles over his head. After tiring of that, he began to imagine Pokémon Battle strategy. Ash was convinced that he heard an electronic bleep. "Okay, that's that," Joy said, waving the empty steel sheath for Ash to see. "Now to seal the incision." The smell of burning flesh filled Ash's nostrils again for a few seconds. Then another hypospray neutralised the anaesthetic. Joy smiled and pulled off her mask. "All done," she announced brightly.
Ash sat up unsteadily. Joy was on hand to help him. "Easy does it," she said encouragingly. Ash looked down and was stupidly relieved to notice that he was intact, minus some wispy hair. There was an addition, though. There was an oval metal plate, about the size of an old 25-cent coin, sticking out of and flush against his skin on the right side of his penis. It had two crystalline gems, one above and one below a small sealed hole.
"That is the refill valve," Joy explained. She showed Ash a small bottle like an inhaler's medicine bottle. "When you need to refill the implant's spermicide reservoir, you simply press the nozzle to the valve and push in. The process is painless and takes less than five seconds." Ash nodded. "Now, something to remember," Joy added. "You only use the refills with a blue label. The one with the red label is an ovicide chemical for the female implant. It will do nothing for you except play havoc with your endocrine system for months." Joy seemed to think that was funny, but Ash wasn't about to make that error ever.
"Uh, the crystals are part of the control system, right?" Ash said, thinking about the SE lessons where he had played class clown.
Joy nodded. "The top crystal will change to a red colour when the reservoir falls to 5% of capacity. The bottom crystal is the security chip. The reason it takes so long to fix an implant is that I have to record onto the chip that this is a real, functioning implant." Joy looked at Ash and grinned. "By law, any woman can demand that a man go to his doctor and get written proof that his FII is real and functioning before consenting to sex."
Ash nodded. He knew the history behind this. They had explained it in SE Classes and Ash had been shocked that anyone could do such a thing. About a century before, the British NHS started offering the physical male sterilisation operation, the vasectomy. As a sign of a 'treated' man, they started handing out neckties with a very distinctive pattern. Then some bright spark copied the pattern and a lot of women found that the men they were having sex with were not as safe as the advertising claimed that they would be. The tamper-proof and copy-proof security chips in the FII Implant were, in many ways, a reaction against that shockingly unethical incident.
"Of course," Joy added, "it isn't all one way. The same law insists that a man can demand that a woman provide written proof that her implant is real and functioning." Joy laughed. "Radical feminism has, at last, come full circle."
Ash didn't know what that meant, but it seemed to give Joy some satisfaction, and he left it at that.
As Ash got back into his street clothes, he briefly considered using that law about proving you have a working implant to torment Misty, but no. That was childish, brutal and ethically repulsive. It was, in Ash's book, the moral equivalent of rape and he wasn't that kind of guy.
Joy was filling in his medical notes when he emerged from behind the screen. "There is one last thing to tell you," Joy said. "The Implant suppresses the production of sperm, but it is not protection against sexually transmitted diseases. If you have any doubts about your partner's sexual history, or if you don't know anything about it at all, you must use a condom, got that?" Ash nodded. HIV-8 had reminded the world that pleasure without responsibility was impossible.
As Ash left the examining room, he shook Joy's hand. He knew it was impossible, but he was sure he could feel his implant dragging against his body.
"Are you okay, Ash?" Misty asked worriedly as he walked over to join her in the waiting room. Ash seemed to be far away in thought at the moment. Then she recalled he was almost fourteen. Ah, she thought. That explained the introspection. She leaned very close. "If it is any comfort," she whispered into her friend's ear, "we've all had to go through it."
Ash smiled and patted her arm in thanks. "It should be, but it isn't," Ash replied. He shrugged. "I'll get over it," he added. Misty nodded in satisfaction. That was her Ashy-boy all right.
***
That day, the three friends set off from Celadon on their long trek to Pallet Town and their winter quarters at the house of Delilah Ketchum. After covering a goodly distance, they made camp for the night in a forest clearing.
Misty had been her usual chatty and frequently mercurial self, Brock reflected, but Ash had been quiet and thoughtful and Brock thought he knew why. He might cultivate the reputation of being thoughtless, but Brock knew Ash was someone who always thought something through. And he was also now growing into a man. He had caught the haunted looks the young League Trainer kept shooting at Misty. He also knew how Misty pined after Ash's affections.
Just before settling down for the night, Brock cornered Ash. "So, they've put the 'rod of safety' in you?" he asked.
Ash shrugged. "I'm still a Trainer, aren't I?" he replied a little defensively.
Brock nodded and grinned. "So," he added lecherously, shooting a significant glance at Misty, "what's holding you back?"
To Brock's surprise, Ash's face twisted with revulsion. "You are the most filthy, disgusting pervert I've been unlucky enough to spend time with," Ash hissed, hunching up and clenching his fists. Brock backed off, fearing Ash was about to attack him. "You… you have no idea what is between us, Brock. This isn't like you trying to ease your pathetic frustrated arousal for a night. Just keep clear of us, right?"
Ash's voice was rising now, and Brock waved his hands in an attempt to calm his young friend down. Misty heard the noise and so did Pikachu and Togepi.
"Chu-ka-pi-kachu, Pika-pi?" [Are you alright, Ash?] Pikachu said.
Ash shook his head. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm fine pal." Ash looked at Brock and suddenly slapped him on the arm in apology. "Look, let's just get some sleep, okay?" Brock nodded in relief.
As Ash sat down to pull off his jeans, Pikachu sniffed his crotch. Typical Pokémon behaviour, scent added colour to their worlds. "Pikachu-chu-chu-ka-pi-chu-kachu," [You smell different tonight,] Pikachu announced.
Ash tickled him between the ears. "I'm growing up, Pikachu," he said, "changes come."
"Ash, you might feel strange, but you have done the right thing," Misty suddenly announced quietly. Ash nearly jumped out of his skin, she was standing right behind him. "You have proven that you care, about yourself and others, by doing this. I'm proud of you." Misty paused in embarrassment, then leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek before retreating. Ash blushed, his cheek tingling. He felt absurdly glad that Brock was on the other side of the camp and looking away at that moment.
"Togi-togi-priii-priii-priii, Togi-priii," [Mommy loves you very much, Daddy,] Togepi added. Ash grinned. Misty didn't think that he understood the little psi-type's language, but he understood it, all right. The fact that the little creature saw them as 'Mommy' and 'Daddy' made him feel warm for some reason. He sighed and pulled off his socks. He was thinking too much and that wasn't a recipe for sleep.
***
Despite his best efforts, Ash was awake a lot longer than his friends that night were. He lay there and imagined the FII Implant nestled within his body like some malevolent alien intruder. By now it would have hooked itself into his reproductive system, ready to obliterate the life-creating seed within his first sexual climax with a tidal wave of spermicidal chemicals. It seemed strangely obscene for no reason Ash could decide upon.
He looked over to where Misty was sleeping, her pale face unutterably beautiful in the moonlight. Perhaps he was attracted to her, physically and emotionally. He hadn't decided yet, but it was definitely looking that way. One thing was certain, however. Should the feelings be mutual, and should Misty consent to join him in that final ultimate step, there was no chance, none at all, that that act would lead directly to the conception of a child.
Ash sighed and rolled over. Oh the reasons were right and good, of that he had no doubt. The alternative was too terrible to imagine. Nonetheless, he had the strangest feeling that he had lost something.
Should that glorious, beautiful moment come, there would be none of the bittersweet risk of lovemaking as described in the most colourful of romances. There would be no risk and no possibility of creation in its' most spontaneous and dramatic forms. His body, and those of the girl less than three feet from him, had been artificially stunted to protect them from undesirable consequences, totally ignoring their right to choose to take such a risk…
Self-knowledge is an odd thing, Ash reflected. Although he was still a virgin, there was no doubt at all in his mind that the events of the day had robbed him forever of his innocence.
The End
Endnotes
Just a concluding note to anyone that doesn't know: The FII Implant or a similar technology does not exist in our present day, though you can be sure that the pharmaceutical industry is working on something similar.
In today's world, sexual imagery is used in every pursuit from entertainment to advertising. Therefore, it is incredibly difficult for teenagers to resist the pressure to engage in sex. Unfortunately, we do not have such easy and all-embracing cures as those described in the fic above. We have to be careful and make informed choices, not the easiest of things to do in the 'first bloom of youth.'
All I can say, without any desire to preach or to push my own moral principles, is this: It is a hard, bitter world out there for the young. Be very, very careful, for your own sake if nothing else.
Ben Russell-Gough, 24 February 2001.