Whee! Another chapter!
Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfic belongs to me under international copyright laws so taking my work is plagiarism. Refrain from doing so.

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks

Ash suddenly has very good luck in this fic. Guess I felt sorry for him in the anime, or it’s the influence of all the pokegirl fics involving Ash I’ve been reading. Ehehe…

Ash: Good luck? ^-^

Lance: Oh?
Phantomness: You’ll see!

Chapter 6

Lance put down his binoculars and frowned. No matter what, no matter the cost, you cannot fail, he repeated to himself. But the boy looked so young!
The blades slipped back into his cloak with a soft ‘snick’.

Lance didn’t like hurting children. However, if it had to be done, he wouldn’t fall… He spread his steel wings and flew closer.

Hide.

Ash sprayed Repel around the area as he set up camp for the night. It hadn’t been a bad day at all. He had won the Boulder Badge, driven off a swarm, saved Pewter City and received a pretty good cash reward, plus he had captured a Beedrill!

Now, Ash was making himself a Ready-Meal over his Primus Stove. The water was supposed to boil in only five minutes. Did it live up to its name?

The water boiled before the timer beeped. Ash nodded and began eating dinner. His pokemon helped themselves to the pokechow Ash had bought. All was quiet. Well, until Ash tried to set up his tent.

That took four tries and an hour before he got it up correctly, but at least the tent was there. Ash inflated the air mattress, unrolled his sleeping bag, and got ready for bed. He liked sleeping early.

That was probably good, because he woke up at 4 A.M. the next morning. It looked like the Beedrill swarm was back, considering that…

There’s a giant cloud of beedrills all over my campsite! Shimatta!
Fortunately, Ash’s Beedrill was proving himself an excellent negotiator and was keeping the beedrills from mindlessly attacking Ash, at least temporarily.

Technically, he had defeated them, right? So why were they following him around? That was so confusing.

Master?

Ash tuned in to Beedrill’s talking. “What is it?”

Leader say, Master defeat entire hive, now Master new ‘Queen’ of hive. The bug said helpfully. Say we will follow Master everywhere.

Oh no. No. He did not have time for this. This was not good. Besides, what was he going to do with – fifty beedrills? One hundred? How many were there anyways?

Ash fainted from shock.

When he woke up, Absol was licking his face. Master, are you all right? Are you sick? She inquired helpfully.

Mightyena was also looking interestedly at Ash. Not sick?

“No, I’m not sick… but I’m not a pokemon! How can I be the leader of a Beedrill hive?”

Old Queen says that not matter. You defeat her, so become new queen. Beedrill buzzed. Personally, he was feeling intrigued.

He would be even more devoted to his master now.

Ash was about to protest when he remembered something he had stolen from Professor Oak’s lab. It was a half-green, half-purple ball that was rumored to make pokemon change species. Maybe…

It was worth a try, right? Besides, from the obedient, almost _adoring_ looks the Beedrills were giving him he’d be stuck with them in any case.

Oh well.

Ash nodded as he spotted a Beedrill and tossed the special poke ball. It flashed twice, and then the pokemon inside was released. Sure enough, it wasn’t a Beedrill anymore.

It was… a Yanma?

“Cute.” Ash said. Yanma. Yes. A quick check revealed that it still had a Beedrill’s hive mentality. Well, it was another insect.

The rest of the Beedrills looked interested. After all, being a Beedrill was common. Being turned into another pokemon seemed interesting. Plus, this was their new Queen so they had no mind to disobey her. They were still one hive…

T-minus two hours and lots of transforming later…

The purple-and-green pokeball went *Ping*, as a little display flashed up. It indicated Ash had only 7 transformative slots left before the transformative poke ball lost its power. Ash nodded and pocketed it. Might come in handy later…

Meanwhile, Oak, Blaine, and Birch all stared at the display from Ash’s (well, code name Silver’s) pokédex. Now Ash just had a normal standard pokédex that fulfilled a few roles. Firstly, it served as identification. Secondly, it recorded the pokemon he had seen and caught. Thirdly, it could be used to transfer pokemon from one location to another, and fourthly, it could be used as a recording device for short periods of time.

So how in Mew’s name had Ash/Silver jumped from having 6 pokédex entries to 57 in only two days?!
Plus, none of his pokemon – if he had them, were being transferred! So that made even less sense!

“Computer virus.” Birch decided. “I knew Oak was a cheap bastard. If he uses lousy equipment, how can he get good results?”

Oak stared. “Must be a malfunction. Hmph. I’ll ask him at the next pokemon center so he can get it fixed.”

“Could be real…” Blaine said thoughtfully. “Maybe Birch sent him some of his extras?” Shrugging, he decided to ask Ash when he came to Cinnabar.

Now Ash had a different problem. He had ‘caught’ all those pokemon, having used the purple-and-green transformation ball to change their species, but he didn’t have near enough the number of poke balls!

What to do?

Fortunately, fate made a decision for him.

“Prepare for Trouble!”

“And make it Double!”

“Woah! Look at all those rare pokemon!”

Rare pokemon? He didn’t think he had those, just a hefty load of pokemon. In any case, he watched as Team Rocket attacked.

Charizard let loose a flamethrower. The transformed pokemon wouldn’t be able to attack for a few days until their bodies finished adjusting.

Beedrill buzzed as he looked in the direction they had come from. Master, I have an idea.

Ash nodded. So, in RPG format, he proceeded to loot Team Rocket’s abandoned camp. He didn’t find much, except for some pokeballs and the remains of a campfire, but that was fine. Once he was settled, he used all the poke balls with him to capture his new pokemon. Besides his team, the rest were sent to Birch’s.

Ash began to wonder if maybe he should apply for a Breeder’s license. That way, he’d be able to carry more than six pokemon at a time… he felt kind of bad for leaving all his other pokemon with Birch, but his adopted father would take good care of them, right?

End Chapter

Completed 10/15/04

Ash: LUCKY!!!!

Lance: Wow. And you’re only nine too…

Phantomness: ^-^ Think I’ll shift Mewtwo’s appearance back a while.