Chapter 3:
Polymorph Your Mother, Fireball Your Friend
 

    Ash was the sort of person who woke up very quickly, jumped out of bed, and immediately attacked the day’s work from the getgo.  The first thing to do is always clear, go to the bathroom and brush your teeth.  He was halfway down the hall when he realized something was wrong, and stopped completely.  There was too much weight going backwards, he felt oddly claustrophobic, and his head seemed to be inside something.  His body woke quickly, his mind took a moment to take stock and figure out why his mouth wasn’t opening with shock at this new development.  It couldn’t because the mask was stopping it.  He finally realized what was happening, and just managed to dive back into his bedroom before his mom opened her door to go into the bathroom herself.
    Breathing heavily, he scrabbled around and managed to unlock the zipper somehow.  Pulling down the zipper, he ripped the costume off and shoved it deep into the closet, hoping that no one would find it until he could find a better place.  The rest of the morning went well enough, and as his mom kissed him on the forehead, he hoped that today would be even more exciting.  Another challenge to be met, and another battle to be won, that was what a pokemon master knew to be the real meaning of hardship.
    Oak was waiting in the usual place in the lab, Duplica fiddling with something small and red.  “Ah, Ash.  We’ll be beginning today with something that will be hard only if you let it get to you.”
“I’m ready anytime, Professor.”
“Good, we’ll be helping to re-energize a male Vulpix.”
“A Vulpix?”  Ash said, stunned “but Professor, I’m way too big to be compacted into a vulpix!”
Duplica turned her head “you’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, yes.”
Duplica tutted, “have some faith in me, Ashy-boy.  Two things, one is that this particular costume has a little magic in it to change the size of the user painlessly to that of a vulpix.  Second, you forget that your pikachu form is just the right size to not require that, so choose.  Magic transformation using my item, or magic transformation using your own talents?”
“Today, I think I’d like to test your magic.  I didn’t know you did enchanting, and I’d like to see how well your handiwork does.”
“How sweet, but remember, I learn anything I have to in order to further my art.”
“Me too.”

Oak walked over to Duplica “Since you seem to be raring to go, we’ll just leave you to get ready.”
Ash looked confusedly at the small red pile on Oak’s desk. “How do I get into it, anyway?”
Duplica smirked “it stretches, of course.”
“Oh, right.”
    Duplica gave him a big wink before she and Oak left the room, once again, she immediately was glued to the monitor screen, while the Professor worked on other Lab business.  Ash, meanwhile, was looking over the empty vulpix costume, remembering the interface on the last one.  He decided that today, he’d like to try out a front opening zipper.  It whispered open, to reveal a lining identical to that of yesterday’s costume.  Not sure what to do, he sat down and put his foot into the leg of the costume, and then the other foot.  With no other ideas, he pulled, finding that the legs easily stretched over his own, shoving his arm into one of the holes before it could snap back.  He stood up to adjust what he’d gotten on so far, once again getting all the stray appendages into their proper places.  Getting the other arm into the costume wasn’t too difficult, and he managed to get both on either side of the zipper to pull it up to his neck.  Finally, he got his fingers to stick out by virtue of the stretchy material, so he could grab the edges of the vulpix mask attached to the back and pull it over his head.  When he had managed to adjust the features properly, he felt a tingling all over, and everything became much taller.
    In the other room, Duplica reached into her pocket “here, four dollars for various bets, but I’m withholding two, since he got himself in too far to operate the intercom to call us in.”
Oak looked up from is work and took the money, “don’t be so sure” and as he said it, a blue aura surrounded the newly formed vulpix, and they both heard a voice in their heads “ready here.”
Duplica wordlessly handed Oak the other two dollars, and they got up to give Ash his final briefing, and get things rolling out among the enclosures.
    As soon as Duplica walked in, she gathered Ash up in her arms and proclaimed “how cute!”  Ash decided to test another ability, and when she let him down, he discreetly spit an ember into one of her shoes.  As Oak opened the doors, leading out to the enclosures, Duplica frowned and started to visibly limp.  Ash smiled in a vulpine manner, and Oak began to brief him on the situation.
“This is a completely different problem, actually.  Vulpixes are actually very polite in both genders, and this one is such a gentleman, he refuses to “take advantage” of the females.  You have to make him believe that it’s for the best.”
“Vul!” Ash confirmed.
“I’ll leave you to it, then.”  Oak opened the enclosure that had held the male ninetails the day before, revealing a male vulpix, who was a lot more animated, as he played with a rubber ball.  Ash walked in slowly, trying to figure out what to do, but circumstance took away any chance for him to plan, as the other vulpix tossed the ball at him, and he bounced it back, starting a game.  While chasing the other vulpix, who had run away with the ball, Ash realized he was doing exactly what he should be.  If the other one became familiar with him, he might get his chance at that.  Ash leaped at his new playmate, knocking the ball from his mouth, and landing on top of him, both of them laughing.  At that proximity, Ash could smell that the vulpix was starting to get aroused, and he jumped off, running for the ball.  He was just starting to get close when a weight pressed down, and he found himself under his playmate, whom he could tell wasn’t very interested in the game anymore.  There was a moment of stillness, and he felt himself get lifted out from under the male vulpix, and carried away by Professor Oak.  “I think you’ve done enough, Ash.”
    When they reached the inside of the lab, Ash jumped down from Oak’s arms, concentrated, and found himself humanoid again.  He brushed the mask back off his head, gave his hair a brush and said, “whoo, that was exercise.”
“Well, don’t get too tired” Oak replied “we have another job for you yet today.”
Ash looked up “oh?”
“Yes, it’s rather important, and you’ll need someone else for this, since we’ll be working with a herd of rapidash.”
    Duplica made as if to suggest something, but Oak discreetly stepped on her foot.  Ash, not noticing any of this said, “the only person I would feel right sharing with would be Misty.”
“She has been asking after you, wondering when you’ll be back.  I’ve told her you’re on special mission that I’m not at liberty to talk about, since I wasn’t sure how you’d take it if she found out.  If you like, I’ll send for her.”
“I’ll never hear the end from her, but that’s the price I have to pay for us being together.”
Oak whistled, and an abra appeared.  Oak produced a letter, and gave it to the abra “give this to mistress Misty.”
“Abra.”  It disappeared, almost instantly reappearing with Misty beside it.
“That was fast.”  Ash remarked.
“Was it?  I got the message five minutes ago, it wasn’t that long.”
Oak cut in “Standing instructions for delivering messages.  I got tired of the lag time, so I send my pokemon back a couple minutes.”
“That’s a handy trick, I’ll have to remember it.  Ash takes so long to get ready, maybe I’ll try that next time we go somewhere.”
“I take a long time?  You start a week before.”
“That’s because I’m smart.”
“It’s because you can’t decide between the blue and the pink toothbrush.”
Oak interrupted before Misty could retort, “I think it’s time we got down to business.”
Misty grinned maliciously “ah yes, Ash’s new job.  Just like old times, aye, Ashley?”
Ash looked petulant “can’t you just make something that changes my size, like the others?”  He said to Duplica.
Duplica laughed, “Ash, this is a rush job, and you don’t have the time to try and learn how to walk right.”
“I morph into a quadruped.”
“Not such a tall one.  The joints are all different, you’d trip.”
Misty muttered, “he trips enough already.”  And more loudly “I’ll be in front, I think.”
Ash said, “Rats, I never get to be in front.”
“That’s because the only time we let you, you led us both into a gravel quarry.”
“I couldn’t see straight.”
“Exactly, and I can, so that’s that.”
    Grumbling, Ash agreed, and Duplica produced the costume.  “The front half has two ways of entry depending.  I’m assuming you want to use your legs instead of your arms?”
“I think that would be wise.”
Duplica pulled the head off, “right, just get in, and reattach this when everything else is secured.”  She and Oak walked out of the room.  “Still keeping your bets on this?”
“Of course.”
    In the other room, Ash managed to pull the rest of the vulpix suit off, and stuck it in the bottom of his bookbag.  Misty had, by then, gotten her clothes off and pulled the front half on, and was holding the front up in modesty.  Ash picked up the bottom half, sat down, and pulled his legs into it, wondering how the costume would change his knees to invert like the costume’s obviously looked like they were trying to.  It was huge around him, and he found no way of holding it up, though he did notice half a zipper track on the outside of the hole he’d climbed into, mirrored by the half-track on the back of Misty’s.  It was kind of silly for her to try and hold on to a semblance of modesty, since they were so close, and since the back of her costume showed so much already.  Noticing him staring, she gave him a dirty look, walked over, and pushed him on the back of the head.  “C’mon, we have to get these things connected before anything else.”  Ash found a zipper on the back of her half, and slipped the track of his into the zipper on hers.  She twisted around, and ran it around all the way, then smoothed the hair of the costume over the zipper track, obscuring it.  She bent down and picked up the rapidash head, looking it over.  It was, as usual, a perfect representation of the pokemon being dealt with, but she wondered how the fires of it’s mane and tail would work, or how she would even be able to see without any visible holes.  Well, this was Duplica she was talking about, and she’d never failed before.  Ash, meanwhile, was wondering what was taking so long and had decided to get Misty’s attention in a rather personal way, earning the almost formed ‘horse’ a whack on the rump with a nearby flat board.  Taking a fortifying breath, Misty raised the head over her own and put her arms down, letting the piece fall onto her upper half.  She wiggled, getting it flush against the rest of the costume, and found a couple of straps to put her arms into so the head wouldn’t shift, and she used them.  With everything attached, she asked “what now?”
Since they were both inside, Ash could hear her very well, and he answered “it’s psychically activated.  Ready?”
“As ready as I can be.”  Ash gave the command, and they felt everything shift.  The fires roared to life, Misty found herself looking out from a strange perspective; Ash could feel the tail and had rear-facing knees.  Obviously, this was anther fast acting costume.
    In the other room, Oak noticed that they were finished getting ready, but Duplica was still watching.  “What are we waiting for?”
“A chance to see them together like that is something that comes up far too rarely, I think I’d like to find out how things go without our help first.”
Oak gave a nod “in this case, I agree with you.  We need to let them get used to the idea before we send them to work.”
    Ash and Misty, however, weren’t agreeing so much.  ‘Why do you keep tripping?’
‘Why do you keep taking steps without telling me you’re going?’
‘I’m in front, you should be ready for me to get going, since we might have to make a speedy retreat!’
’I haven’t yet had to give up, and I’m not going to have you making me start now.’
‘Fine!  But we have to find a way to move properly.’
‘If you open your mind totally to me—‘
‘No!  I’m not going to give you that sort of access for so long!’
‘Can you think of anything else?’
‘No, but I’m sure I will soon.’
‘Until then, we’ll have to open up, become of one mind.’
‘OK, but I’m keeping at least half differentiation.’
‘You only need to let me in to your senses and first level conscious thoughts’
They both concentrated, and Ash found himself looking at both the rather arousing inside of the costume, and the lab through double peripheral vision.  He could feel Misty’s displeasure at his reactions. ‘You’re such a boy, will you concentrate on the job at hand.’
‘Don’t spoil it, there’s no part of you that isn’t cute.’
‘Normally, I’d agree, but right now, we have to concentrate.  Let’s see how well be walk like this.’  They took a hesitant step, and found that with their senses combined, it was a breeze to keep balance and stride.
    In the other room, Duplica was currently at 3:5 losing, and not liking it.  At least they’d tripped at first, which was a consolation, but perhaps it was time to have faith in Ash and just enjoy watching Ash do all of this.  Besides, she was running out of money.  Turning to Oak, she said, “I think they’re ready now.  Oh, and I’m retracting all my bets from here forward.”
Oak gave her a bright look “So you’ve learned to trust Ash’s instincts?”
“Maybe not that far, but I do have more faith in him than I used to.  I always knew he was good with the pokemon world, I guess that skill and empathy ride over into everything pokemon related.  If I wasn’t so good at my job, I’d be almost afraid of him as a rival change master.  He’s a lot more calm about this than I had expected.”  She got up and followed Oak out the door to the lab room Ash had taken as a changing room.
    As they led Ash and Misty out into the fields where the other large quadrupeds grazed, Oak gave them their briefing, “the male rapidash in this case have been too busy at play to notice that the season has arrived, and the females have all settled down to wait for a suitable male to make the first move.  Your job is to remind them when it is and what they should be doing.”
When they arrived in the fields, Duplica said, “giddyup” and slapped Ash on the rump, causing his part of the joined mind to wonder how many more times he’d have to deal with this.
    When Ash and Misty had gotten far enough away, Duplica turned to Oak and said, “how do we watch them now?”
Oak pointed to a tower on one edge of the field, “there’s a decent view from up there.”  Duplica ran over to it as fast as possible, but saw that the box on top was only large enough for one person.  When Oak arrived, he said, “I have little interest in seeing this.  You go up, I’ll attend to some paperwork I have to do.
Duplica looked over to Oak and winked.  “I have a way, I think.  You just go up there, and I’ll find my own way.”
    Oak shrugged and started walking up the stairs to his observation box.  Arriving there, he sat down on the chair he’d left up there and watched the proceedings down below.  Presently, he realized that two oblong objects in front of the window were obscuring part of the view.  He leaned out the window, and saw Duplica dangling her legs off the edge of the roof, with a set of white wings sticking out of the top of her T-shirt.  She waved to him and he went back to his seat, shaking his head.  Young people today.
    Ash and Misty, meanwhile saw the two groups of rapidash, and trotted up to the ones who were racing each other.
‘What should we do?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘You’re the one who’s job this is!’
‘I’ve never had a case like this.’
‘Okay, first thing, we remind them it’s mating season.’
‘Right!’
    They started walking towards the largest group of males, mimicking the movements they saw on the pokemon channel.  The males looked up for a moment, but seemed uninterested, going back to seeing which one was fastest.  They then tried rubbing up against one of the others, but it just walked away.  Misty’s temper began to take over, and she kicked the largest male in the side as hard as she could.  Ash realized what could be done with this, and wiggled his part of the costume as hard as possible, while sending his plan to Misty.  They reversed course and started to gallop towards the female section.  The large male followed, with some of his friends in tow.  Ash and Misty reached the females, and tried to blend in with them as the males arrived.  As the two rapidash groups met, other pockets of males saw what was happening, and cantered over.  Taking this to mean their job was done, the two humans tried to get out as quietly as possible, but noticed that the large rapidash they’d kicked was still following them.  This called for drastic measures, so they engaged their agility and galloped as fast as possible for the exit.  Ash quickly disengaged the costume, managed to get the zipper partway open, and keyed the combination to open the door.  They leaped out and activated the closing mechanism as fast as possible.  They made their way back to the lab room to get out of the costume and get dressed.
    By the end of it, Duplica had almost fallen off the observation tower laughing, and the Professor was having a little trouble keeping a smile off his face.  Those two really did think and act fast together when they needed to, he observed.  If only they were so harmonious normally, he might get some quiet time when they were around.  Without realizing, he slid down the firepole he’d had installed in the tower in case he needed to get out quickly, and slowly walked back into the lab, Duplica landing beside him and retracting her wings into her body.
    When they arrived in the lab room, Misty realized she would have some difficulty getting out.  She squirmed and thrashed, but she couldn’t seem to get her arms free of their straps, and so the headpiece continued to stay secured to the rest of the costume.  What was worse, soon after they had finished in the paddock, she’d broken the mental link with Ash, and disengaged the costume so she could get out, so she was totally blind to what was happening around her.  What she felt, however, was a breeze on her backside as Ash opened the zipper the rest of the way and got out.  She tried to call to him to help her out, but her voice was muffled totally by the costume, or so she thought since he wasn’t helping her.  What Ash was doing was thinking.  Here was Misty, stuck totally, and he needed to think of a way to get her back for sticking him in the back half, even if it was successful.  Getting an idea, he called to Misty “I’m going to try and get you out.”  He then very carefully slipped one leg, and then the other into the rear of Misty’s half of the costume, bent over, and got himself right in behind her, saying “well this is nice and cozy, isn’t it?”  He felt Misty stiffen, and when she heard him trying not to laugh yell “Ash Ketchum!  Do you ever even try acting mature?”
He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her on the shoulder “now where would be the fun in that?”  He made a petulant sound and then said, “Well, if you insist on business first…” He held the strap steady, and Misty managed to extricate one arm and then the other.  She was very aware of the closeness over her husband’s body, and decided to give him a treat.  She quickly grabbed him, using him for support as she quickly switched herself around in the costume, held him close, and kissed him passionately.  When they finally broke, she looked at him coquettishly and said “was that what you were looking for?”
Ash gulped and whispered “something of the sort.”
    Misty giggled and pushed the headpiece off them.  Realizing they were both naked, she scooped up her clothes, and retreated to another room to dress.  Ash rolled his eyes, trying to understand why they could do all that, but she still needed to get dressed privately, and pulled on his own clothes.   They were married, after all.  All right, it would be a couple years yet before the whole thing kicked in as legal, and they were both aware that until then, they could both be brought up for statutory rape if things got too serious beforehand, but it was still silly.  She could barely hold a eighteen-year-old body long enough, and since they were still physically ten and twelve, it made no sense.
    Oak walked into the room after a few minutes, and said, “Well, Ash.  I think that’s a good days work, don’t you?  Misty has gone back to your gym, and told me to tell you that she hopes this will last you until your done here.”  Ash thanked him and walked out of the lab, but then something in his gut made him turn back and look through the lab window.  Something was bothering him, something about how all the projects he had done, had cast him as a female.  Surely some females were having difficulty.  He saw an arcanine sitting in the room, with Oak talking to it.  The arcanine listened carefully, and then it’s head popped off, revealing Gary.  Ash wasn’t an expert on the subject, but Brock had taught him a few signs, and he noted that the arcanine that Gary had been impersonating was a male.  This answered one question, but brought up a few more.  Why Gary?  Ash shook his head and decided that he would think more on the subject at home, there was nothing more to see here, he was certain, and if he hung around, one of the Oaks might notice.
    Ash took the short walk home a little more slowly than usual this time, taking it to think more about what was going on.  He may have been a few synapses short of a normal speed intellect, but once he got there, he was usually as good as anyone else, and there was a lot of weird things going on once he thought about it.  He slowed down as the next train of thought stopped at his station, Gary was taking male pokemon, and he was taking females.  He was married, and Gary was single.  The next thing he thought of stopped him dead in his tracks.  Oh no, not again, the Professor would never go as far as that for his grandson, would he.  That was a hiccup in time; Saliaven himself said that the odds of it happening now that he was forewarned were miniscule.  And yet… the reason it became small was that the knowledge would make him able to avoid it, and Ash was beginning to realize why temporal magic was forbidden.  He could do nothing, thus hoping that the knowledge would allow him to avoid it when it came, or he could work on hunches, not knowing when or where the change would occur, but trying to avoid it.  This was pretty obvious but… no, trying to untangle a causality knot was pointless, he’d just have to do as he always did and take things as they came.  That was what being a master was all about, turning the unexpected into an advantage.
    His first sight when opening the door was an empty house; perfectly normal considering now was when Delila usually went upstairs to have a nap.  What wasn’t normal made itself known when he’d closed the door and settled on the couch to watch some TV, maybe tuning in to the pokemon channel to see if he could pick up any more tips for his job.  A white shape flashed down the hall and leaped up, pinning him to his seat.  He saw the face of a ninetails very close to his own, but felt no breath, and there was a giggling, as if from far away.  Shifting himself slightly in his seat, Ash said, “Mom?”
The ninetails scrambled into a humanoid sitting position next to him and pushed the back of it’s head off, revealing the face of Delila Ketchum, “So this is the work you try to keep a secret from me.”
“You never asked, and since when did you enjoy that sort of thing?”
“Since when did you keep this sort of thing from me?”  She countered.  “Anything else I should know about?”
Ash muttered something and tried to get upstairs with his bookbag, but Delila had noticed the extra weight and said, “Interesting that your bookbag was empty when you left.”
“This is none of your concern.”
Delila made a serious face “Ash Ketchum, you come right down here and show me what you got today.  To think that after all this time you’d be ashamed of anything around me.”
Ash said, “fine” and let his mom open his bag and see what was inside.  She pulled the top half of the ninetails costume off, revealing that she’d put it on over her clothes and pulled out the rapidash halves, setting them aside with an appraising glace at her son, and then found the vulpix costume made as small as possible on the bottom.  Lifting it out, she slid a hand into an arm and one into a leg and pulled, finding that the costume was stretchy enough to probably cover a full size person.  “What am I supposed to do with this?”  She asked, both to herself and to Ash.
Ash was having a rather tiring day and had a lot on his mind, so he just gave his mom a tired look and said, “try it on, why don’t you.”
    Delila gave him a skeptical look, shrugged, and kicked off the rest of the ninetails costume, and set about stretching the vulpix on.  She had little difficulty getting the zipper up to her neck and locking it in, but that was as far as her luck held, as she disappeared, replaced by a proper vulpix.  Ash remembered that Duplica had made it so that it only had to be psychically turned off, and while his mom was trying to sort out what happened, Ash first tried deactivating it with no response and then stood up and said, “Duplica” getting no response.  He sighed and said, “there is a very good chance you are watching this, in which case you’ve heard, but that is immaterial since I’ve added a magic imperative that that.  You have to appear soon, the call of a superior is very difficult to resist.”
There was a whoosh of displaced air and Duplica appeared, saying, “Since when were you my superior?”
Ash grinned, “Since I became first of four.”
Duplica huffed “I’ll have you know that the only reason I stay fourth is that I don’t like power struggles.”
“I remember the last witch that gave me that excuse.”
Duplica closed her eyes, and then opened them again to reveal that they’d been switched with that of an arbok and she fixed him with a glare attack.  “Repeat that remark again.”
Ash had already activated a protective ring, expecting this and said, “Witch.”
Duplica returned to normal and said, “Why did you call me, anyway?”
“To explain to me why you trapped that costume.”  He replied, pointing to his shape-changed parent.
“Oh, that.  It’s not trapped; it’s only that I hadn’t expected anyone who couldn’t deactivate from the inside to try it.  And by the way, that case has not yet come to pass.”
“What do you mean by that?”
In response, the vulpix on the floor changed shape and size, reverting to his mother in a stretched vulpix costume.  “Soon after you last saved the world, I found that I could use low impact psychic abilities, I’ve been helping mimie keep the caterpie out of my herb garden.”
Duplica smirked, “see, Ashy-boy, it’s all under control.  Pallette’s proximity to the mage city allows it’s better bred inhabitants to access lesser versions of their neighbor’s powers.  And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must attend to my ship, good day.”  She vanished in a sprinkling of sparks.
“Showoff” Ash muttered.
Delila, meanwhile, had changed back into a vulpix, and was running around Ash, nipping his heels.  Ash shook his head and said, “I could probably use a break.  OK, we’ll do this properly.”  He opened the door, and went into the back yard, followed by Delila.  He then called all his smaller pokemon out of their balls, disappeared and reappeared quickly with Pikachu on his shoulder.  He morphed into his pikachu form and set about to a play session with the assembled rabble.  Duplica and Misty teleported in, took one look at the chaos, looked at each other and said, “not enough room.”  There was a whirlwind around them, and the whole group was on the hill/field overlooking Pallette.  Duplica morphed into an eevee, quickly followed by Misty’s transformation into a vaporeon.  They looked at each other again, and both leaped on top of Ash, pinning him to the ground, while Delila calmly walked up and licked his ears.  A bright flash heralded Gary in his divineon form, followed by a warpage in space as Mew walked straight out the side of the hill.  Duplica and Misty let up, but not before Gary snickered at his position and got a shock for it.  By dinnertime, they were all quite exhausted, and Ash was by far and away ready for the largest meal of his life.  Delila was tired too, so they made a quick stop at the house to change, and went out to eat at the local tavern, which was the only place in the area that could make a decent large meal.
Author’s note: In reality, I wonder how big Pallette town is.  I credit it by this time at being about five by seven square.  The next installment may or may not have to get bumped up past R rating, so we’ll see where it goes.  I’ll give you a warning, mind, before I try anything dirtier than my constant PG-13.