Chapter 6

"Ash and May....bite-sized!"

"…May?" Max called out weakly to his infant sister.

May squinted at her brother trying to remember who he was. The infant crawled a bit toward him before stopping half way.

"Does…she remember?" Brock wondered.

The Professor stepped in the doorframe but did not enter the room. He sized up the situation rather quickly, but didn't want to interfere. For him, this was not just a moment to see if the two infants would remember their friends, but to him it was an experiment. He watched carefully, mentally jotting down in his mind every single thing infant Ash and May did. His face was stern without glee, the once jovial professor stood there completely serious, and almost ominous in appearance.

"May…it's me…your little…uh…I mean your BIG brother...boy did that sound weird to say," Max said sighing.

May's eyes twitched as Max slowly walked up to her holding out his hands. Ash sat there gazing curiously as he watched Max walk over to May. Brock's attention was completely on May, he didn't want to distract Max and May by calling out to Ash. He also felt very uncertain.

Max held out his left hand and opened his palm in front of his infant sisters' face. The young girl looked at his palm and then looked up at her brother. Max nodded with a smile in order to encourage her.

May, carefully, and slowly, placed her two hands on her brothers opened palm. Max felt the cold hands of his infant sister touching his opened hand and barely let out a breath. Everyone else in the room continued to stare, Brock, the Professor, Ash and Pikachu, each waiting for their individual questions to be answered. Not a sound could be a heard, the entire moment between May and Max was considered the moment of truth for all of them.

May pressed on her brother's palm with her hands. Max then held out his right hand and opened that one next to his left. The two opened hands almost bewildered May, as the young infant kept moving her head from one hand to the next, as if she didn't know what to do.

The girl placed both her little hands into her brothers' bigger hands. Max continued to smile staring into his little sisters' sapphire eyes. Suddenly, May lifted her hands back in the air and slapped them back down on Max's two hands. Her uncertain gaze shifted into a huge smile, as the young infant playfully began squeezing both her brothers' hands.

"Mux?" May asked as she looked at her brother.

"Yes, it's me Max!" Max exclaimed.

"Ehah!" May yelled as she leaped into her brothers arms.

"Whoa!" Max said as he quickly held his sister in his arms before he dropped her.

May snuggled her face into her brothers chest and gripped his shoulders with her hands. Max felt a bit strange holding a baby, let alone his baby sister, as he was taken back by holding her and feeling her grip onto him.

Ash grinned, "Ahahaha!"

The room lit up with laughter as all previous doubt had been washed away.

"Looks like they do have some of their old memory…." the Professor muttered.

Ash quickly crawled over to Brock and started tugging on his leg.

"Hey down there, how's it going Ash?" Brock asked, cheerfully.

Ash looked up, smiling as Pikachu walked next to him.

"Haha, your hands are so cold May!" Max chuckled as his sister started placing her hands on his face.

The young infant girl playfully rubbed her cheek against her brothers' face. Max returned the emotion by rubbing his cheek against his little sisters'.

"Mux…hehehehoho!" she repeated, giggling.

Brock bent down and picked Ash up, holding him at arms length in front of him.

"Remember me? Blaaargh!" Brock teased, sticking his tongue out and making a funny face.

"Hoohoo!" Ash replied as he grabbed Brock's tongue while it was sticking out.

"Whey!" Brock tried to say as Ash held onto his tongue.

"Hahahahahaa! Ash has your tongue!" Max said happily while carrying his infant sister.

"Asssh, I nweed tha to speek proppperly," Brock tried to say.

Ash gripped Brock's tongue with both his hands, and erupted with laughter as he tugged hard on it trying to pull it out of Brock's mouth.

"Looks like the boy had a strong grip!" The Professor said, surprised.

"Pikachu," Pikachu laughed at it's trainer.

"Heyz c'mon leth go!" Brock said as he placed Ash down on the ground.

Ash let go of Brock's tongue and looked at his wet hands from the saliva.

"Gah, I don't think I've ever had someone grab my tongue before. I guess I'll think twice before sticking my tongue out next time," Brock said, relieved.

Max felt his infant sister getting too heavy to hold and decided to place her down next to Ash.

"Wow, you're pretty heavy for an infant May," Max said.

Ash took a look at his wet hands from Brock's saliva again. The boy looked to the right where May was sitting next to him, and deliberately wiped his hands all over May's clothes.

"Wagaoooh?" May said annoyed as Ash wiped his wet hands all over her shirt.

"Heeeeheee," Ash said pointing and laughing.

"Noonoo!" May shouted angrily as she pushed Ash's chest with all her might.

The force of the girls' push was so strong that it knocked Ash backward and he banged his head on the floor. Ash whimpered as tears formed in his eyes.

"Hey, you two aren't supposed to fight," Brock said bending down.

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!" Ash yelled, hysterical crying.

May had a coy smile as she turned her head away from Ash.

"Hey, Ash, it's OK. She didn't mean it," Brock said, sitting the boy up and patting his back.

Ash's crying started to fade as he continued to snivel looking at May with contempt.

"Wow, my sister really must like beating Ash up," Max said, putting his hand behind his head.

"WELL NOW, this is all fine and dandy except for one thing!" The Professor exclaimed.

"What's that?" Max asked.

"Well….the fact that your two friends are infants for goodness sakes!" the Professor slapped his forehead.

Max, Brock and Pikachu looked toward the Professor. Brock placed Ash's small sweatshirt and hat on the table in the middle of the room.

"Gee, I almost got too carried away by seeing how cute the two of them were," Brock said, "You know a way to reverse this…I hope."

"Yeah, you can turn Ash and May back to normal right…with that gun thingie?" Max added quickly.

The Professor looked down slyly as he saw Ash and May crawling around the room in opposite directions.

"I suppose so," the Professor mused, "My invention definitely should be able to reverse the process. Being the brilliant genius that I am, I always have an emergency plan for every single one of my machines in this lab. Buuutt…"

"What, what is it?" Brock asked.

Ash and May started circulating around the room in opposite directions, naively. They were crawling quickly on their hands and knees, with their heads looking at the floor and not watching where they were going. The two of them would end up meeting each other as they started crawling in the same direction in an oval pattern.

"The gun needs to be recharged. See this panel?" the Professor asked as he pointed to a yellow energy bar on the inside panel of the gun.

"What do you recharge it with? What even powers that device?" Brock asked.

"Orange juice," the Professor responded.

"Really?"

"No."

"Oh."

"You need to work on your sarcasm detector, boy," the Professor said coyly.

"Huh?" Max asked.

Ash and May eventually came full circle not watching where they were going and bumped heads into one another.

"GAHH!" Ash screamed, brushing his hand against his black hair.

"Aargh!" May complained as she rubbed her forehead in pain.

The Professor rolled his eyes, "In all seriousness, this device is powered by super secret formula #69. Since I never planned to use this device until I uh…needed it…I never needed to keep another power source ready, at least during the last several decades anyway."

Ash and May shrugged off their minor bruises and started rolling on the floor, giggling in opposite directions in the background.

"Wheeeeeeeeee!" the two infants said, playfully rolling on their backs.

"And since you're acting so calm you must know how to get this stuff right?" Brock asked.

"Yep. I'll just have to do a #69 for it, and the device should be back at full power. There is a way to reverse them back to the ages they originally were once I power up the gun again," the Professor said, yawning.

"You can make that formula? What's it made out of?" Max asked.

"TOP SECRET! I know if I told you kids you'd end up taking the ideas for my invention and getting the fame and credit for it. My invention, my genius at work, so I'll just make the formula in seeeecret," the Professor said.

"Uh fine, as long as it works and turns them back the way they were, I don't really care," Brock responded.

"Of course you do realize that this mishap means that you kids will have to work extra hours for every moment spent off the job?"

"Gee, I kinda forgot we were supposed to be working for you. I was actually having fun doing my share of the work," Max said.

"And you also….oh MY GOD WHAT THE HELL!? WHO TOUCHED THAT?" The Professor yelled at the top of his lungs.

Ash and May stopped rolling in their tracks as they sat up from the loud pitched scream.

"What? What's wrong now?" Brock asked, nervously.

The Professor ran to the table in the middle of the room and noticed the napkin was on the floor. The Professor picked up the napkin and looked around suspiciously.

"What in the world happened to my chocolate chip cookie? Seriously, I can't even leave my snacks on the table without you people eating it behind my back?! Can't an old man ever get a break with you kids? Which one of you ate my cookie?" The Professor shouted.

"Buuuuurrp," May burped and smiled naively.

The Professor's jaw dropped on the floor. He then walked slowly up to infant May and placed his face in front of hers.

"You're a handful, kiddo, you know that?" he said.

May's eyebrows raised as she suddenly squeezed the Professor's big round nose.

"Looks like you nose honks, Professor!" Max said laughing.

"I should have seen that coming," The Professor sighed as he stood up.

"Teehee!" May squirmed with glee.

~*~*~*

Outside the lab in the opened field, three familiar characters were walking side by side completely out of breath.

"I can't walk another step or I'll collapse!" the woman with long red hair shouted.

"It's times like these I wonder why we don't just rent a car," the man with blue hair parted in the middle, said.

"That's because the two's of you'se don't have a license!" the small feline Pokemon said.

"What are you talking about Meowth!" the Team Rocket member known as Jessie shouted, "I already have a license to drive!"

"You have a license to annoy, bore, and snore loudly too," James replied.

"Will you shut up?" Jessie said clenching a fist.

"Where'd you get dat license from? Off a cereal box?" Meowth scoffed.

"Actually I have a stolen license, but whose keeping count anyway?" Jessie responded.

"Why couldn't we just stay in the balloon?" James asked as he fell to the ground.

Jessie and Meowth sat themselves down on the grass next to him.

"Maybe because it sunk to the bottom of the lake once that twerps' Swellow put a hole through it the other day?" Meowth replied, "Sometimes I wonder how that twerp will manage if his Swellow is put out of comission."

"Hmmm, look at that fancy building," James said, pointing to the small silver toned laboratory.

"Fancy? Looks more like tacky to me," Jessie said sarcastically.

"I wonder what a building like that is doing out in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing but a sea of grass over here," Meowth wondered.

"Who knows? Who cares? Besides, looks like that building has a broken window," Jessie said.

"Ooh you're right, one of those circular windows is smashed," James exclaimed.

"Hmmm…that just piqued my curiosity," Meowth said, raising his claws.

"You don't actually intend to go in that place do you?" Jessie asked, exhausted.

Meowths' eyes lit up as Jessie and James could tell he was up to something.

~*~*~*

Inside the lab's guest room, Brock was holding both Ash and May in his arms. He was holding Ash in his left arm, and May in his right. Both babies clung to Brock with their hands as they looked around the room.

Max sat himself down on the edge of his bed, "The Professor locked himself in his room rather quickly. I sure hope he already started on that formula of his."

Brock nodded as Ash and May started getting restless in his arms. Ash reached up and started pulling on Brock's face. The ever curious and energetic May watched him as he began pulling on Brock's mouth.

Brock stood there smiling as he allowed Ash to play with his face. May's eyes lit up as she decided to do the same. May started grabbing Brock's ear and pulled on it as hard as she could. When each infant saw the other start pulling on a feature on Brock's face, the other one tried to move onto a different feature. Ash then squiggled his little body to get higher up while Brock was holding him, and reached for his nose. Ash glared at May as if he was insinuating a challenge. May responded by squirming her little body up on Brock's chest to reach for something higher on his face.

Max and Pikachu watched smiling as the two infants tried to rearrange Brock's face as best they could. Ash started pressing both his hands on Brock's cheeks while May started poking his right eye.

"Ah…not the eye! You can touch anything else, just not the eye!" Brock said as he jerked his body.

"Yeehaooo!" Ash shouted as he constantly tried to push Brock's cheek to the right.

May reached up with all her might and started pulling on Brock's spikey hair.

"Wow, Ash and May can't sit still, can they? They're almost always getting each other into mischief!" Max said laughing.

"I noticed," a testy Brock said as the two infants pushed and pulled on almost every feature on his head.

The Professor opened the door to the guest room and greeted the two kids and infants.

"Have you finished the formula yet?" Max asked.

"No no, it will take a few hours yet to finish mixing the chemicals and making sure they're at the right temperature. I'm just wondering if either of those babies had to go to the bathroom yet," The Professor asked.

"OH I FORGOT!" Brock gasped as he placed both infants gently on the bed.

"What? What's the matter now?" Max asked.

"Ash and May are only a year or so old! That means they're going to make in their pants!" Brock shouted.

"Oh man, I didn't even think about diapers or anything!" Max said, astonished.

Brock, Max and Pikachu looked at the Professor for an answer.

The Professor waved his hand, "What are you three looking at me for? Do I look like I keep spare diapers around the lab?"

"I sure hope neither one of them uh… "made" yet. They're still sitting in their underwear under their clothes aren't they? After all, everything they're wearing got shrunk with them," Brock said.

The two infants sat side by side, staring naively at everyone talking in the room. The young infant boy with dark spikey hair and the brunette still wearing her bandana looked from person to person as they were shouting, trying to understand what they were saying.

"Hmmmm, I wonder how the girls' bra fits her now that she's a little infant. She must still be wearing it under her shirt," The Professor wondered.

"Hey! Don't talk about my sister like that!" Max said angrily.

"Calm down, if it weren't for me you wouldn't even realize if you'd have to change them or not," the Professor responded.

"I just hope if either of them "make", it's a #1 rather than a #2. If you know what I mean, I don't think I'm mature enough to stomach removing the brown stuff," Brock said sobbing.

"But…even if they did you can't change them Brock!" Max shouted.

The two infants poked out their heads and stared right at Brock with clueless expressions on.

"Well I suppose I'd be the one to change them…as I don't think the Professor wants to –"

"You got that right," The Professor said quickly.

"That's not what I mean! You can't change them because if you take off their underwear you'd see the bottom of them…uh…naked," an embarrassed Max blushed.

Brock rolled his eyes, "Max don't worry, I won't be looking when I don't have to, you know. I'll just quickly slap on some diapers if we can go out and get some…besides…I don't think we have to worry about that right now anyway. The two of them look fine."

Off of Brock's remark, Ash made a squeezing sound. Brock looked nervously at his younger friend and pressed his hand against his pants.

"Good news!" Brock declared.

"What?" Max asked.

"It's not a nr.2."

"Phew."

"Bad news!" Brock declared again.

"What now?" Max asked.

"It was a nr.1. Ash feels wet. I think he peed in his pants," Brock said covering his face.

"Well, well, that's my cue to exit. Have fun with that!" the Professor said hastily as he walked out of the room.

"Hey wait a sec, what am I supposed to do?" Brock said nervously.

May smiled and placed her hand on Ash's shoulder. An embarrassed Ash looked at May as the girl let out a chuckle.

"Oh brother," Brock sighed.