Electric Bill
Disclaimer: Nintendo owns the world of Pokémon. I'm just filling in a gap here.
Timeline: When Bill changes into a pokémon, his adventures, before Ash changes him back.
Bill arrived at his laboratory with a tin of cookies and a flask of coffee his mother had made for his breakfast. Today he was going to put the finishing touches to his DNA Cell replication machine. He was so excited he ate his cookies over the control console as he checked it for readiness, though he kept his coffee to one side.
His mother was also a bit of a fresh-air fiend who did not like the idea of him being shut up in a dusty musty laboratory all day so he opened a window slightly on the side away from the computer as he had promised her: it would save on the dusting.
Even the door he left slightly open: it was a hot day and he would hear if someone opened it more. His Grandfather was coming round sometime anyway. Having checked the console to make sure it was ready for replicating, he opened the nearest bell-shaped booth and went inside to check that.
The chip was in on the control panel on the back wall; all he had to do was check the wires on the central node. His Jolteon, a rare pokémon that he'd just evolved up from an Eevee with a Thunder Stone, wandered in with him and curled up by his feet to sleep.
He smiled at it while he was working. Unfortunately a hungry spearow flew in at the window after the crumbs on the console and pecked a button. The door shut. It was the bright red button to start the process of cell replication and all the connections had been made. He dropped his screwdriver in surprise and tried to undo the commands from within the booth, but it was too late, and the spearow pecked buttons for crumbs as fast as he could tap them.
He blacked out and everything went fuzzy, just as he had got the red alert going. When he woke up he was under the console and things seemed to have got bigger. He felt strange, but put that down to falling over in his machine. There were red lights flashing and a strange noise going and he wanted it to stop, it was hurting his head.
Strangely enough, when he wanted it enough things seemed to flash around him and the red lights stopped flashing and the siren stopped. He seemed to be only able to crawl at knee-height: he stretched up to the control panel and hit it but it felt safer on all fours. The door opened.
He went out into the lab: it seemed familiar, like his home and yet different. The Jolteon had disappeared: he didn't blame it with all that noise going on. He looked round for it and saw it next to his big cabinet full of files on rare pokémon. He went up to it, calling its name, bumped into it hitting it on the nose and realised this was his full-length mirror, installed for trying on trainer costumes.
Rubbing his nose with his paws he realised what had happened: something had triggered the mechanism and he had been combined with his own Jolteon! As it was not a psychic pokémon he could not feel its thoughts but he could feel its instincts and recognise its personality. He had come out of the left booth, not the right one where he went in.
Probably he could figure a way to reverse the process: after all, it was his Laboratory. He felt hungry and ate half a bowl of pokéchow and half a cookie he found on the floor- he could not work out how to drink the coffee and had to put up with water. He must have neutralised the red alert and opened the door with a thunderbolt - the electricity and the other fighting skills he had taught it with training machines seemed to come almost as easily as the hunger and thirst in this mind, and were more easy to satisfy.
He could remember how to Quick attack, but he had not got up to Pin Missile yet. He jumped up on the control console and tried to remember which buttons to use. Paws did not seem so easy to use as hands, especially when you were a bit electric. He managed to get the machine ready again and open the other door, but someone with hands would have to change him over while he was in the booth. Perhaps his Grandad would do it for him.
He jumped down again and curled up on his coat on the floor, where he had thrown it. It was a pity he had not put in a bed here: even for a pokémon, they were normally kept in their balls. At least taking a leak as a Jolteon was easier: no clothes, no zips, he just used the potted plant! He heard a noise: someone was coming in!
Of course, as a Jolteon he could not shut the door or window, something he would naturally have done a little later as a human. He hid behind the cabinet, but there were not many good hiding places in here, and the person coming in, entering sneakily and looking around to see what he could find, was James of Team Rocket, the notorious pokémon thieves! Bill realised he was in trouble and tried to run.
"Ah!" said James "A Jolteon! They're rare!" and threw a ball from his belt. "Go Weezing!" The Weezing smogged him with poison gas: Quick attack was no good against that. He managed to thunderbolt it but it threw Sludge at him: it was just too strong for him and he went down coughing. James threw a ball at him and light seemed to come out of it, together with a strong shrinking force; it enveloped him and he was captured! "Gotcha!" Said James.
"So this is what it feels like in a pokéball" Bill thought "It's a bit cramped, no wonder Pikachu doesn't like it!"
He'd heard of Ash's famous Pikachu who wouldn't go in a pokéball but followed round behind him all the time. It felt like he was moving; probably travelling back to Rocket's Secret Headquarters on James' belt. After a while, he heard voices and managed to pick out these words in James' voice:
"Well, I've just acquired a new pokémon let's see how it fights against yours! Go Jolteon!" and he felt himself flying through the air and landed on his feet. At least he was out in the fresh air again which was better than in a pokéball as he'd been sludged, but he was facing a large and fierce looking pigeotto and he was going to have to fight it!
"Pigeotto, Sand Attack!" called the other trainer and it kicked sand in his eyes. He could not rub them to get it out.
"Thunderbolt Attack!" called James, but his thunder bolt missed.
"Quick Attack, Pigeotto!" called the Bird-Keeper and it got its attack in before his. Slam! He felt totally weak and dizzy and fainted with a last cry.
"Huh! He's not very strong, my Weezing'll have to finish off the job!" groaned James, forgetting that his Weezing had caused the trouble in the first place by poisoning the Jolteon. He and Jessie crept into a pokécentre that evening and put him into a computer just to show the Boss they'd had some success and captured a rare pokémon. Bill felt really sick. He knew he was in a computer because he had heard a computerised voice saying
"Jolteon was placed in Box 4", "I'm in my own computer system!" he sighed " I'd never leave a poisoned pokémon in here for ages, this stinks!"
On the way out in the morning though, they were confronted by an angry Nurse Joy! " I saw you sneaking your pokémon into the computer last night without having them healed, but this place was too crowded to do anything about it! If you don't heal them now, they won't be any good for fighting with today".
"I concede you have a point there!" drawled James.
"Heal them then, and don't take all day about it we've got work to do!" snapped Jessie, as they handed them over. Bill felt the ball come to rest on a flat surface, then energy shot through him and he felt all right again. The machine had even given him an Antidote to the poison!
"Gee! I wish I could get on one of these every time I get a cold or get bitten by an Ekans! I'll have to work on a system like this for humans!" he thought. It wasn't very long though, before he was in another battle, and this time he was hyperfanged by a Ratatta! They didn't even give him a potion!
"I've had enough of this game! I'm not fainting and going in a computer unhealed again! What's more, I don't think they've got the badges to control me! My Jolteon was level 45 and James isn't even its original trainer, I am! He doesn't even know all its attacks!" and he turned and threw a Thunder Attack at his "trainers."
His last view of them as he ran off was of two blackened white uniforms in negative with Rs on them and a flying Meowth with whirly eyes and crinkled whiskers!
"Looks like TEAM ROCKET'S BLASTING OFF AGAIN!" they cried.
He ran away into the grass. He was free! But what did Jolteons eat in the wild? He only gave his one pokéchow. Oh well, at least he was free. After a day and a night, which he measured by the sun going down and coming up, his hunger was getting really bad. He had found a pond to slake his thirst, but he was afraid of being attacked by wild pokémon, and he did not want to try eating one. He'd found he could not survive on grass. He didn't have to wonder very long, for he heard some pokémon eating. He wandered near to see if he could get some of their food: it would be dark soon. Perhaps he could get left-overs. Then he heard another trainer say:
"Hey, it's a rare Jolteon! I gotta capture that!" and he was confronted by another Sand-Attacking and Quick-Attacking pigeotto!
"Oh noo, not again!" cried Bill as he felt himself going into a pokéball again.
"That was strange Ash, that one went down quickly!" said a voice - Bill was shocked to hear it was James' voice, what was James doing with Ash? He had heard they were bitter enemies, mainly because Team Rocket were always trying to nick his faithful Pikachu! "I was going to warn you not to throw yet, or to put it to sleep!"
"It's ok Misty, it must've escaped from a trainer fight where it was worn down! It came to the smell of the poke chow! They only evolve with special stones anyway!" said Ash. Misty? In team Rocket trousers, in James' body? This was impossible, unless - could she have got mixed up with his machine like he did? He didn't remember James shutting the door. Ash let him out again to feed. "It's been bitten and I'll have to heal it first!"
"At last! Trainers who know how to take care of a pokémon!" breathed Bill, as he ate. Pikachu beside him gave him a strange look, but no-one else seemed to notice. The one addressed as Misty tore off a bit of cloth and bandaged his bite. He was given a drink and allowed to stay out for a little while the humans lit a fire, ate and got ready for bed. Brock brushed him a little after he had brushed his Vulpix, but mainly he was left alone with Pikachu.
"Why did you speak like a human just then?" said Pikachu in Pokémon language.
"Did I? Well, I was a human once, I thought I always spoke like a Jolteon now." Perhaps he would keep the skills he had learnt as a human as a Pokémon. If not, perhaps he could learn to do it well enough so people could understand him and help change him back! He told Pikachu his story and practised with him quietly. It was hard to twist his mouth to make the right sounds but he could tell the difference after a while.
"You sound like a human now!" said Pikachu.
"The Jolteon sounds like it's in real pain!" said Ash coming over. "Come on, you go back in your ball for the night, I'll find someone to heal you in the morning."
"We could take him up to Bill's house, he's bound to have some potions and things in there, being a pokemaniac," said Brock.
"I dunno, last time I was in Bill's house he wasn't there" drawled Misty in her man's voice. "P'raps he'll come back in the morning. We'll see" she added sleepily.
Bill nodded hopefully as he went back into his ball now as Ash crawled into his sleeping bag for the night. He was getting so used to being a pokémon, but he didn't like it. You sort of lost track of time in the balls, and the wild was not much better, and being in a computer box was a bit like he'd imagined being in stasis. The next time he was called out it was not to fight, it was the morning and he was in his own house!
"Hi! I'm a pokémon!" he said, in his best human. "No, I'm not, I'm Bill. Please put me in the cell separator and press the buttons." They gave him a few dodgy looks but did as he said.
When he was back as himself he noticed the rest of Team Rocket with James in Misty's body and a spluttering Meowth. Jessie explained what had happened, how they had got mixed up when he (Meowth) had jumped up on the console. Bill didn't blame him, since he'd done the same thing with the help of a spearow.
"I think I can fix that, just get into the device, in the opposite parts to where you started," he said, "there we are!"
He pressed some buttons and James came out in Misty's tight crop top and shorts and Misty in James's too big clothes. They blushed , went back in the booths and Misty threw out James' clothes and James threw out Misty's.
They dressed, then Team Rocket went on their way and Bill invited the others to share the food his mother and Grandad had left - he told them what had happened and sorted it all out over the computer.
