Chapter Four - A Strange Change

Ho-oh groaned and woke up. It was sleeping in a cage in the laboratory and was awoken by someone yelling. It forced it's eyes open and looked across the room to see a scientist yelling at his assistant. Ho-oh didn't care what they were talking about at that moment, to it just rested it's head back on the ground and closed it's eyes, trying to get back to sleep.

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Ash held his head as the pain rushed through him, eyes shut tight. Right now he couldn't move, as he felt like he was being stabbed all over. It felt like someone was punching him randomly in the face and his head felt about ready to explode with pain. His back hurt almost as much as his face, and he didn't even know what was happening to him.

He forced his eye's open. The room seemed to be filled with a red mist. Everything was red, and blurred. The room began to spin and Ash fell back, rolling off the bed and landing on his stomach flat on the ground. He shut his eyes again, and all was dark.

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"You did what?!" Cassidy yelled. Dr. Deon and his assistant had just told her about the syringe mix up and what could happen to Ash. "If something serious happens to that kid the Ho-oh could go down with him, and all this effort will have been for nothing!"

"Well nothing may happen" Dr. Deon said nervously. "He could be unaffected, no one has ever had a Pokémon's blood inserted into them, so we don't know"

"Well you better find out soon" Butch said in a threatening voice. "Because if they go down, you go down too"

Cassidy nodded in agreement. "I want you two to go down to that kids cell and find out what's going on" She said to the two scientists in front of her. They nodded and walked quickly out of the room.

"We better just hope that kid is alive" said Dr. Deon to his assistant. "For our sakes"

As they reached the cell they looked in and their eyes grew wide when they saw Ash. Dr. Deon rubbed his eyes and looked again. "I don't believe it"

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Ho-oh groaned and yawned as it re-awoke. "Can't a Ho-oh get a little sleep around here? What's all the noise about?" It thought raising it's head and opening it's eyes. The source of the noise came from Cassidy, Butch and a few scientists and Rockets, including Jessie and James, but Ho-oh noticed they glanced over at the empty cage next to it.

Or at least, it was empty when Ho-oh had gone to sleep.

Ho-oh looked at the cage and it's eyes grew wide. There was Ash, lying unconscious and leaning against the back of the cage, but he was different. "What have they done to him?" Ho-oh thought. Ash now had two large wings coming out of his back. They looked like Ho-oh's wings, only smaller and instead of being rainbow coloured they were black. Ho-oh looked over at the scientists and growled, but listened to what they were saying.

One scientist was looking at a chart and shock his head. "I don't see how this could have happened"

"How did the kid mutate?" Jessie asked.

"It must have been the Ho-oh blood" The assistant said.

"Well duh to that, but that still doesn't mean it should have worked. That should have either killed him or made him extremely sick" Dr. Deon stated.

"He's strange, anything can happen with that kid" James said glancing back at Ash.

Ho-oh frowned and looked at Ash as it began to piece together the information so that it understood what was happening. He seemed to be in a deep sleep, and an uncomfortable one at that. "Maybe I should try to find out what's going on" Ho-oh thought and closed it's eyes.

But as soon as Ho-oh got into Ash's mind, a pain struck him. All Ho-oh saw was pain, and confusion inside. It's eyes shot open and it shock it's head to rid itself of the slight pain that had settled.

This was really bad. Ash had too much power, and if things got out of hand there was no telling what Ash could do without thinking. When Ho-oh became overcome by anger, or had too much power, it couldn't control it's actions. It would be the same with Ash. But maybe they'd get lucky and Ash would be able to keep his powers under control. But it wasn't likely.

"Start the power scan"

Ho-oh looked over and saw Butch standing by the cage, directing two scientists to set up a machine. It was placed in front of Ho-oh's cage and a small red beam shot out, hitting the Pokémon in the chest. It didn't hurt, and Ho-oh wondered if it had worked when the beam stopped after a minute.

"Ho-oh's attack power is steadied at three hundred and eighty" One scientist reported.

Butch thought for a while. "Impressive, and that's only when its resting, when it battles it's power will increase incredibly" He looked over at Ash curiously and then at the scanning machine. "Try it on the kid, see what happens" He said.

The scientists gave each other curious glances but did as they were told. The machine was turned on and a scientist began to read the report with deep interest. "Attack power at three hundred and eight, and rising"

"Rising?!" Ho-oh thought to itself. This was bad. Ash wasn't even supposed to have up to three hundred attack power. They had to get help before something went wrong. Ho-oh groaned as only one person came to mind. "Of all the people it had to be him didn't it?" It thought.

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"Kingdra quit attacking Charizard! Charizard quit attacking Kingdra! Umbreon, Venusaur, stop laughing at them. Raichu stop eating all the sweets. And Scizor..." Rick Ketchum turned to his Steel/Bug Pokémon, who just sat there meditating. "Do something else"

Raichu's chocolate covered face looked at him, a big grin spread across his face, before he turned back to Rick's bag and began eating all the sweets again. Scizor just glance up at him before closing his eyes again. Charizard and Kingdra didn't listen and continued their fight, which had been started with a playful water gun and Umbreon and Venusaur continued to laugh as Charizard slipped in a large puddle of water.

Yes, these were the Pokémon of the World Champion. Impressive, no?

Rick groaned and sat down on a log. He could never control his Pokémon at times like this. They were great Pokémon, especially in battle, except they got out of control sometimes, like now. Raichu was sweet obsessed, Scizor spent all his time meditating if not training, which for some reason annoyed Rick, Umbreon, Kingdra and Venusaur were pranksters while Charizard had an extremely hot temper.

"Hey Rick, you there?"

Rick opened his eyes and looked around for the source of the voice. "Oh man, I've cracked" He thought.

"Rick you idiot, it's Ho-oh"

Rick groaned. There was no real reason why, but Rick and Ho-oh never got along. They were always insulting each other and mocking each other. "What do you want?"

"I can't believe I'm sayin' this....ok, I need your help"

Rick grinned and leaned back against the tree behind him. "Well, well, well. So the great, powerful, legendary Ho-oh needs my help. Well I dunno..."

"Your pushing it Ketchum"

"Alright, alright, what's the matter?" Rick asked.

"I'll try to make this simple for you" There was a pause before Ho-oh began to talk quickly. "Team Rocket has returned and the captured Ash and I. The hideout is the same one we were at before and we, unfortunately, need you to help us get out, before something really bad happens to Ash"

Raichu looked over at his trainer and tilted his head. "Raichu?"

"Bad? What kind of bad things?" Rick asked.

"No time to explain, just get here now before I make something bad happen to you! Ho-oh yelled into his mind before cutting off.

Rick groaned and shook his head. "Why does Ho-oh always have to yell?" He mumbled, feeling a slight headache coming on. He stood up and brushed himself off, turning to his Pokémon. "Ok guys, break it up, we've got work to do"

All his Pokémon stopped suddenly what they were doing and looked at him, confused. Kingdra, Venusaur, Umbreon and Scizor were returned, leaving only Charizard and Raichu. Charizard frowned and grumbled.

"I don't care if you were winning Charizard, now lets go" He said mounting the fire Pokémon along with Raichu. Charizard spread his giant wings and flpped them hard, taking off into the air. [Were too?] Charizard asked.

"Team Rockets HQ" Rick answered. "And don't look at me like that. It's there and that's were we're going"

Charizard shrugged and darted off towards the HQ they thought no longer existed. It was silent until Raichu groaned after a few minutes and held his stomach.

"I told that bar was expired by a year but no, you had to test it didn't you?" Rick asked rolling his eyes. Let's hope his Pokémon were more co-operative when the got to the HQ.

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To Be Continued

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Heehee, arn't Ricks Pokémon amazing? Lol, well what'd ya think? I had to bring Rick back, couldn't leave him out too long, or his Pokémon ^_^ Hope you guys like, it was fun to wrote too. please, if you want this story to keep going, submit a review, they always help. Slán go foil!
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