Author's note: And we're back, with more nonsensical fun! Please enjoy.

Chapter Two: He's The Mon

The Earth... an exquisite blue planet with more than a million species living on it... The Earth... Oh, sorry, wrong anime. We seem to be having that problem a lot, don't we?

Ash laughed and quickly hid his fluffy heart-shaped bell of death behind his back. "Yeah, I know, right?" he said.

"Pika Pika..." Pikachu agreed from the floor.

"Hey..." Misty said, Azumarill riding on her shoulder. She was sick of carrying the little bugger, especially since its laryngitis had magically disappeared now. "Since when we were you alright again?"

"Yeah," May agreed, as she dragged Max along by his arm. He was wailing something about taking over the world, but she wasn't listening. "I thought you were gravely injured after throwing yourself off a cliff."

"Tis the magic of 4Kids!" Ash replied. "They edited it out, so I'm fine now!"

"Uh..." Brock said, "but 4Kids don't dub this anime anym-"

"Don't question the main character!"

"Yes, master!"

Anyway, our magnificent heroes who can do no wrong continue onwards through this unknown region. Doesn't matter what the region's called. A region's a region at the end of the day, right? You see one string of gyms, you've seen 'em all.

As for the food situation, let's just say they ate off-camera. Or they're living off their fat reserves. Or the magic of friendship curbed their hunger pangs. Either one works, really.

"Stop struggling, Max!" May cried. "I'm starting to consider disowning you!"

"But it's not fair!" he replied. "You called me useless!"

"Well, you are."

"And I found out that some viewers thought I was a girl!"

"... Really?"

"Yeah!" He stared angrily through the screen. "I'm looking at you, VGS2..."

"Now that's just silly!" May snatched Ash's hat from his head.

"Hey!" Ash cried.

May put the hat on Max's head. "There, you see? Now you look like that guy who loves his Rattata!"

Ash could be heard sobbing about his missing hat off-camera.

"Hmph!" Max said. "Why am I the only one who causes gender confusion? You're secretly a boy!"

May slapped her hands over Max's mouth. "You traitor! They must never know!"

"A boy?" Misty asked. "But you've got a bigger chest than me!"

"Uh... Uh... Look! Over there!"

Everyone turned to see Dawn standing there. "Hi, guys!" she said.

"Oh, wow, there actually was something there... I mean, hi!"

"Did your skirt get shorter?" Ash asked.

"Impossible!" Brock replied.

"Hey!" Dawn said angrily. "This fic is a K plus, so keep your eyes up here!"

"You're the one with a skirt barely covering your-" Misty said.

"Well, if the wind picks up, 4Kids can just edit it out."

"But..." Brock replied, "I thought we'd already discussed thi-"

"Don't question the main female lead!"

"Yes, mistress!"

Misty and May got angry. "Oh, so you think you're the female lead now?" Misty cried.

"Well, bring it on, short skirt!" May cried.

The three girls started brawling in the mud that appeared from nowhere, while the three guys stared in awe. Azumarill hopped off Misty's shoulder and walked away with an innocent whistle.

Once the coast was clear, Buneary took this opportunity to pop out of her Pokeball and approach Pikachu.

"Hiya, handsome~!" she said.

The world stopped for a minute to process the shock and horror of Pokemon having genders and talking English.

"Gah! Female!" Pikachu cried, sweat-dropping like crazy. "Cannot handle, cannot handle."

"How about you and me go someplace quiet?"

"Been... around... Ash... too long..." His eyes suddenly went blank. "What's a girl?"

"You're a boy?" Azumarill asked in shock. "Since when?"

"Since the day I was born, obviously!" He paused. "I think. Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"I may have been a girl back in Kanto. Not totally sure."

"Well, then..." Azumarill jostled over to snuggle up to Pikachu. "Helloooo, male nurse!"

"Wait a minute! You're a girl, too?"

"Eh, maybe. Then again, maybe not. But the author totally used to ship us, you know."

"Oh, Arceus..."

"Hold everything!" a voice called out, before Togetic suddenly landed on the ground next to them.

"Togetic?" Pikachu asked incredulously. "But I thought you'd left Misty forever!"

"I did... but I consider this an urgent matter." She flew over and glomped Pikachu. "Because the author totally shipped me with you first!"

"You've been female this entire time?"

"Who knows! That was never specified."

"Wait!" another voice called out.

"Oh, come on..." Pikachu said.

A Bellossom suddenly appeared, shoving both Togetic and Azumarill aside and hugging Pikachu. "I'm clearly the best ship here!"

"... And... who the heck are you?" Togetic asked.

"A random Bellossom that's never even appeared on the show. Problem?"

"But it makes no sense for the author to ship you with Pikachu!" Azumarill cried.

"Yeah!" Togetic agreed. "At least me and Azumarill belong to Misty! Pokeshipping was the first pairing that the author ever shipped ever, so it makes sense that she'd pair us off with him!"

"But your genders were never confirmed, right?" Bellossom asked with a smirk.

"Well... no, but-"

"Well, I'm an OC, so I'm female by default. Suck on it!"

From that day on, Togetic and Azumarill were stereotypical emos, both dressing in black and wearing heavy make-up.

"How could this happen to meeee?" Togetic sang. "I've made my mistaaaakes!"

"Craaaawling iiiin my skiiiin!" Azumarill sang. "These woooounds, they wiiiill not heaaaal!"

Buneary laughed maniacally. "See, this is where I have you beaten, foul Bellossom!" she cried. "For it is canon that I love Pikachu!"

Bellossom gasped in horror. "No!" she cried.

"And it is also canon that I am female!"

Bellossom gasped again. "No!"

"And, despite me being the last to exist of all three of you, the author is a full-on lagomorphshipper!"

"Noooooooooo!" Bellossom fell to her non-existent knees. "But the only reason she created me in the first place was to ship me with Pikachu..." A steam of unmanly tears fell down her face. "What purpose do I have now?"

"Well, to be fair, the first story she made of you two was you using Attract on him... and him snapping out of it, only to slap you to the floor and completely ignore you afterwards. Super romantic, huh~?"

Bellossom rolled into a ball and sobbed.

Eventually, Misty, May and Dawn had stopped fighting in the mud, due to the risk of the details creeping past the K plus barrier. Let's just say that Ash had seen things, maaaan. He'd never view girls the same way again. As for Brock, he was busy stabbing himself in the gut for daring to think that way about girls younger than Nurse Joy. Max was scarred for life and spent ten minutes muttering to himself in a corner.

Once the girls had cleaned themselves up, Dawn had stopped running around, screaming about being dirty, and Ash had taken his hat back from Max, May blinked in realisation.

"Wait..." she said, "didn't I have a contest coming up soon? The narrator said so last chapter."

"That's right!" Dawn replied. "I do, too - obviously - so can I travel with you guys?"

"Sure!" Ash said. He puffed out his chest smugly. "You can help escort me to my next gym battle, travelling companion!"

"Uh, my name's Dawn, rememb-?"

"Don't care! To me, you're all just travelling companions! If one of you leaves, I can easily replace you with someone else!"

They all looked at him with horrified expressions... except for Dawn. She'd hired a volcano to erupt behind her.

"EXCUSE ME?" She ran forward and started strangling Ash. "So my name isn't important to you, huh? Huh? Punk?"

"Gack!" He looked to everyone else. "Guys, help me!"

"Hmm..." they all replied in perfect synchrony, "nah."

"No one forgets my name..." Dawn growled in a demonic voice, "no one..."

"But Ash is known for forgetting stuff," Misty said. "Remember Pidgeot?"

Ash stopped dying for a second to look at her in confusion. "Who?" he asked.

A long distance away, a lone Pidgeot stared at the sky, manly tears streaking down its face. "He'll come back for me..." he said to himself, "he promised..."

A Pidgeotto approached. "Hey," it said, "just forget the stupid human and let's make Pidgey together~"

He turned angrily to her. "Leave me be, woman! My trainer will come back for me! He will! And then you'll see! You'll all see!"

"Mmm, nope, don't remember," Ash said, before promptly dying of oxygen deprivation.

"Hmph!" Dawn said, letting him drop to the floor.

"In fact, there's a question!" May said. "Why do you always change your Pokemon with every new region?"

Ash didn't respond.

Misty scowled and walked over. "Ash Ketchup! I mean, Ketchum!" she yelled. "May just asked you a question!"

Ash didn't respond. I wonder why.

"Ash!" She stomped on his face repeatedly. "Get. the. heck. up. you. lazy. bum!"

"Wah!" he cried. He blinked up at her, then his eyes started watering. "Misty... you saved my life."

"Yeah, whatever. Just answer her question."

"Huh?"

"What, you deaf now, too?" She stomped on his face again. "Why do you always change your Pokemon with every new region?"

"Ow!" He jumped to his feet, amazingly unharmed by the abuse and also not caring about it at all. "Well..." He brushed his fingers against a Pokeball on his belt, which used to contain Swellow, but now contained his new resident Meowth balloon-popper- I mean, cherished friend, Staraptor. "Because a new region means a fresh start and a fresh start means fresh Pokemon to compete with!"

May laughed. "Right!" she replied. "You're just advertising that region's most popular Pokemon to the kids!"

"Yeah," Misty agreed, "though I still think you're stupid for getting rid of your strongest Pokemon for much weaker ones."

"Hey!" Ash cried. "If I kept the old ones, I'd be decimatin' foo's around the region, yo! This way, I don't win too easily."

Max folded his arms. "Says the guy whose Pikachu is probably level one hundred by now," he said.

"Pika Pika..." Pikachu added before being smothered in another hug by Buneary.

"Quiet, living Pokedex!" Ash yelled. He gave the area a shifty look. "We don't deal in levels around here."

Dawn started intently at Max for a moment, then screamed and backed away quickly.

"What's wrong, Dawn?" Brock asked.

"I just realised!" she cried. She pointed a shaky finger at Max. "That hairstyle... those glasses... that living Pokedex persona... He's a younger Conway!"

Ash and Brock gasped in horror. Misty and May looked confused.

"What the heck's a Conway?" Misty asked.

"Sounds like a ripoff of Subway," May replied.

Brock immediately jumped in front of Dawn. "I'll protect you!" he cried, pulling a wooden cross from nowhere. "Back! Back, foul beast!"

"Argh!" Max cried, shielding his face. "Religion in a kid's show! It burns!"

Elsewhere, 4Kids felt a disturbance in the force. They all reached for their emergency editing tools before remembering that they didn't own the rights to Pokemon anymore. They all went off to their emo corners.

"The power of Insert Holy Deity Here compels you!" Brock yelled, throwing a bucket of water over Max.

"Argh!" Max screamed. "It burns us! It burns us!"

"Kill it!" Dawn cried. "Kill it before it lays eggs! Or starts stalking me! Either one works!"

"I'm meeeeltiiiing!"

"How many references can we make in one chapter, I wonder?" Misty asked.

"As many as we want!" May replied, pulling a plunger from nowhere and dancing randomly.

Misty shrugged, pulled out her own plunger and danced alongside her. All they needed now was plumber suits. Maybe the odd musical number.

"Jeez..." Pikachu said after finally breaking away from Buneary. His paw kept her at arms length, as she tried desperately to latch onto him again. "We'd better call the narrator, before this gets any weirder." The humans all stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at him. He sweat-dropped. "Uh... I mean... Pika Pi Pika Pikachu."

They all got back to what they were doing, no questions asked.

"Ooh, you're so sexy with your Pikas and your chus~" Buneary said.

He made sure to keep his paw held against her forehead. "What is with you, anyway? Ash has plenty of male Pokemon. Why am I the only one you stalk?"

"I can't help it if you look super hot catching a potato~"

"... Catching a potato?"

"Mmm-hmm! Croagunk was like..." She mimed throwing a potato. "Hyew! And you were like..." She mimed jumping after it. "Whew! And I was like..." She gave him a look of awe. "Whoa!"

"... In English?"

"Don't you mean Pokemon?"

"Whatever."

"You caught the freaking potato, man! It was so high, but you were like "Don't care" and you caught it! You freaking caught it!"

"... And this is special because...?"

"It looked cool. Plus, you looked insanely hot doing it."

"But I'm a Pikachu! How can a Pikachu look hot?"

Buneary shrugged. "I dunno, but you manage it."

Pikachu facepalmed with his free paw. "Urgh... why did they have to make me the mascot?" He got angry. "That's it!" He dashed away from Buneary, who immediately fell flat on her face. "Narrator dude! I want out! Give Ash a Clefairy starter, instead!"

"Uh..." the narrator replied, "I don't think I'm qualified to be changing things on this show."

"I don't care! I demand you give him a Clefairy!"

The narrator gave a frustrated sigh. "Alright, fine." He turned Pikachu into a Clefairy. "There. Happy now?"

Pikachu - sorry, Clefairy - looked down at himself in horror. "WHAT?" He frantically ran around in circles. "AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!"

"Anyway... ignoring Ash's Clefairy..."

"Ash's hot Clefairy!" Buneary added.

"Yes... anyway... with the addition of an old friend, our heroes continue on their travels..."

"Travels?" Misty asked, spinning her plunger around.

"... Our heroes continue on their travels, with both May and Dawn looking forward to their next contest... although does anyone care about that, really? I mean, who really likes to watch contests? Let alone read about them?"

"HEY!" May cried, pointing her plunger at the camera. "I take offense to that remark!"

"I'd take offense too, if I wasn't busy over here!" Dawn cried, still hiding behind Brock.

"Anyway, what will happen next in this tale of romance, suspense, mystery and tragedy? And will I ever stop sounding so pretentious?" He paused. "Probably not. Stay tuned!"

To Be Continued...