The Pokémorph
I told myself I wasn't going to write any more fanfiction. Really. I have four different stories in the making already, and I wasn't going to write another one until I finished two. But I had this other idea that I really wanted to write. So I compromised. I wrote a short story, based on this idea. It's centered on the main character, and basically sums up the first part of the story.
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon, or anything thereof (including the Pokémorph), or Dave Barry, or George Bush, or Trogdor the Dragon, or the Dancing Boobah, or Hawaii's Own, or the Nintendo DS, or the Gila monster, or the Tribble, or Kool-Aid, or Palmolive, or Nair, or Paul Bunyan, or the Martians. I own Lekdrazil, and the concept of the Pokémon Designing Contest (except on the off-chance that someone else came up with it first), and everything else.
It all started with the Pokémon Designing Contest.
Admittedly, that sounds pretty harmless on the surface. But let me explain to you: A Pokémon Designing Contest is, by definition, "a brainless competition among small children to design the most implausible and freakish creature in the universe." This never precisely works, however, because no matter how much sugar the children consume they never succeed in creating anything stranger than the Dancing Boobah.
Being the enterprising young woman I am, I decided to enter this contest. This, of course, was highly unfair, because in no way could my teenage brain ever hope to compete with the partial synapses of a five-year-old. Nevertheless, inspired by the fact that Dancing Boobahs were invented by adults, I pressed forward with my entry. The rules were simple: You needed to submit a picture, some basic information (height, weight, likelihood of eating your computer), and a two-line description of you Pokémon. My entry, Lekdrazil (from the words Lekdra, meaning "certain death on account of electrical overdose" and "Zil" meaning "tiny lizard"), went through several descriptions until I finally decided to explain what happens when you pull on its tail, which results not only in extreme electrical discharge but a disturbingly accurate rendition of the "Hokey Pokey". (As an added bonus, the tail might come off if the lizard is feeling generous.)
So I entered this Pokémon in the contest, and waited (chewed off my fingernails) to hear the results. It took them about a week to decide which entries were truly horrible, and then five more years to determine which of the remainders would look best tattoed across Ash Ketchum's face. By the time they released the results, I'd invented sixteen other Pokémon that were more qualified than Lekdrazil, most of which I'd shamelessly ripped off from other strange creatures (George Bush, for example).
Anyhoo, I didn't win. Grand prize (a Nintendo DS and Pokémon Brainfart, the latest game of the time) went to, of all people, a seven-year-old who had submitted a photograph of a Gila monster, which he had cleverly scribbled on until it looked suspiciously like Trogdor the Dragon. But I hadn't really entered to win grand prize -- I'd entered in hopes of attaining first or second place, in which case I'd recieve a commemorate Pokémon necklace in the species of my choice (any of the starter Pokémon, as well as some select über-popular species such as Magikarp.) To make a long story short, I (as well as a few relatives and half the state of Idaho) won the necklace and ordered it in Squirtle. (Squirtle is my favorite for many reasons, not the least of which being that it is not a Dancing Boobah.)
I'm not sure what other species were chosen, but speaking for a few relatives, my brother picked Cyndaquil (a chunk of coal prone to spontaneous combustion), my sister picked Ditto (congealed Hawaii's Own juice concentrate), and one cousin picked Meowth (a close relative of the Tribble).
Of course, it is human instinct (especially at a young age) to wear a necklace as soon as you recieve it, unless it is made of brown-and-chartreuse plastic, in which case it is human instinct to vomit severely. My necklace was not made of brown-and-chartreuse plastic, and so I had to wear it (at least for the first few days) to show that yes, indeed, I was included in half the state of Idaho. It was then that the trouble started. I can't say it was the manufacturer's fault -- if they had included a note saying "Warning: Do not get wet while wearing this necklace", the first thing I would have done was forget to take it off before getting wet (though, for the record, I probably would have listened simply because it was the craziest thing I'd ever heard).
Anyway, the day the necklace arrived, I promptly grabbed it from my dad, tearing off his hand in the process (I quickly returned it with a humble apology) and ripped it delicately open. The little pendant was more than I could have ever hoped for -- it was some kind of cheap metal inlaid with shiny hard-plastic. I put it on and then, because getting wet while wearing it was a bad idea, went to the bathroom and washed my hands afterward. It was the darndest thing -- as soon as I put my hands under water, they turned blue. Not blue-from-the-cold blue, but the kind of food-coloring accident blue that you hoped never to see again after the Great Birthday Cake Botch (courtesy of your color-blind grandmother). At first I thought I'd been powdered with something (blue Kool-Aid scares had been going around lately), but once my arms got wet, the hair there started falling out with such ferocity that it might have clogged the drain if it weren't about three molecules in diameter.
It was then that I began to suspect some manner of foul play, such as Nair shampoo and toilet cleaner. I grabbed a bottle of Palmolive and scrubbed until the water began to turn blue -- not because the coloring was coming off, but because I'd dumped about three gallons of soap on my hands in the process. When all was said and done, I still had blue hands, but they were the softest blue hands in the solar system, or at least until Martians invented Palmolive dish soap.
So I gave up on the soap and returned to whatever I'd been doing beforehand, which was peeling a bunch of boiled eggs. It was then that I really started to worry, because boiled eggs are known for easily picking up color (lick one after eating a Laffy Taffy, and the whole thing turns bright green), and these were as white as boiled eggs. So wrapped up was I with my blue hands and the eggs that I didn't notice as the color leached through my entire body. If my head-hair had fallen out, I could have been a Dancing Boobah. Happily, this didn't come to pass; instead, something much worse occured -- I realized I needed to take a shower.
Normally, a shower is no big deal. You get in, drown yourself under a cascade of boiling (or freezing) water, scrub yourself with a bar of soap, then get out and realize you forgot to bring a towel. But I have to admit I was dreading this shower, mainly because I was afraid I'd turn some icky shade of mauve. So I waltzed into the bathroom with all the grace (and general appearance) of Paul Bunyan's sidekick, wondering if I should start some kind of Blue movement (if I didn't turn heliotrope), made sure I had a towel, and removed my clothing. It was at this point that I realized I was completely blue, a highly disgruntling matter. It was also at this point that the bathroom inexplicably began filling with steam, a highly-rehearsed practice of bathrooms designed to mask important body parts, even though the water I'd turned on had roughly the heat of the Atlantic Ocean.
I got into the shower and turned on the water. I've always enjoyed being wet, especially if it meant there was a risk of drowning. But my adoration of imaginary physical risk was put to the test when my hair turned white under the water. Not grey-white, but an inexplicable blue-white that looked pretty good with my skin. It was at this point that I said something, I forget exactly what. It was either "Great, now I'm all coordinated" or "Goat, now I'm ill-coagulated", most likely the latter as that was precisely the thing I tended to say when showering under the threat of morphing into a Dancing Boobah.
I said that Squirtle was my favorite Pokémon, but that wasn't entirely accurate -- its evolution, Wartortle, is my favorite. Or at least it was, until my ears started growing hair (something I hadn't expected to happen until well into my late forties) and their nice cookie-shape became more of a slice of pizza (something I hadn't expected to happen until I dressed as a Martian). It was at this point I fell down, otherwise I would have finished washing myself. I'm still not sure why I fell down, but when I came to, I was very aggravated to discover that not only had I become a Pokémorph (someone who, despite all logical persuasion, believes that they've turned into a freakish mutant), but somebody had turned off the water before I was done with my shower and then left me in the bathtub. Thoroughly annoyed, I finished my shower and tried to get dressed, only to discover that my shirt would not proceed further than my neck due to the fact that I had developed a three-ton shell over my entire torso.
My life got progressively weirder after that. And let this be a lesson to you: If you are offered a necklace in exchange for a really bad marker drawing, get it in a shape that will fit into your clothes.
That's the end. I have other stories, so feel free to check out my profile.