Written by (Cubed)

It’s been quite a while since Ash Ketchum had arrived in the Hoenn region after his top 8 finish in the Silver Tournament. Since that time, he has made new friends and met many new Pokemon, like Taillow, Treecko, Corphish, and many others. Brock is still with Ash on his journeys, which is great since he can always depend on him to prepare such a delicious meal for himself and Pikachu.

Along the way, he has met with the aspiring 10-year-old trainer and daughter of the Petalburg City gym, May. Well, to be politically correct, she’s not really traveling with Ash to win badges like he is. Instead, she’s striving to be a great Pokemon coordinator, and to do that, she’ll have to win all sorts of Pokemon contests, such as the Beauty contest, the Cool contest, the Tough contest, and a couple others.

Traveling with May is her 8-year-old little brother, Max, who is so into Pokemon that he cannot possibly wait to become a trainer himself. Of course, he’ll have to wait about two more years since all Pokemon Leagues around the world require new trainers to be at least 10 years old before they receive their license. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know a whole lot about the world of Pokemon. His vast knowledge has at times proven to be vital for Ash.

Anyway, now that you know our heroes a little more, it is time we joined them in their journey. They have made it all the way past Fortree City and are on their way to Lilycove City, with Ash hoping for his next gym challenge to be there and May hoping she will find another contest house there. Along the way, however, Ash stops to see a new, yet familiar place.

“Hmmm… what’s this?” Ash asked.

“Oh! This is the Safari Zone, one of Hoenn’s most popular attractions! There’s lots of wild Pokemon for people to capture here!” Max said.

“Yeah, and there’s a lot of them too. There are even some Pokemon you can find only here!” May said.

“Ahhhh… just like the one from Kanto, right, Brock?” Ash said.

“Yeah, before it was shut down. Hey, look at this!” Brock said. He noticed a note hanging down from the welcome sign.

“It says here that for today only, you can bring any one Pokemon into the zone with you!” Brock said.

“That sounds cool. Don’t you think we should go in?” Ash said.

“Why not? It’s not often they do something this nice. It should make catching Pokemon a breeze!” May said. With that, everyone entered the building and approached the desk.

“Hello! Welcome to the Safari Zone! Are you here to catch some of our most rare and valuable Pokemon?” the female repsentative said.

“Yes, along with Brock and May behind me. Is it true that we can use one Pokemon while in the zone today?” Ash asked. The lady nodded.

“Yes, that is correct. Of course, you’ll still have to pay the ρ500 admission fee and you must use our own special safari ball to catch Pokemon.” she said. Ash, Brock, and May went ahead and each paid ρ500 as they each received 30 safari balls. Max, of course, was not given any balls due to not having a trainer’s license yet, but he was free to travel with the group and watch as they had their fun.

As you might expect, Ash, May, Brock, and Max all ran around the Safari Zone as quickly as they could. After all, they only had five minutes each to catch as many as they could. Through the special promotion, each trainer could have a Pokemon with him/her to combat against the wild Pokemon. For Ash, he had his trustworthy Pikachu at his side. May had chosen her Torchic, and Brock chose Forretress.

After some time walking, Ash finally found a Pokemon.

“Ah, cool! An Oddish! Let’s go, Pikachu” Ash said. Pikachu nodded at its master and ran up to Oddish. Oddish looked confused as it stared at the battle-ready Pikachu.

“Pikachu, thundershock!” Ash commanded. Pikachu unleashed a powerful electric bolt at the Oddish. Ordinarily, grbum types would be pretty good at resisting electricity, but this Oddish seemed to be in major pain after the attack. Ash figured it was at a low level. But it didn’t matter. As long as he caught it, he would be happy.

“Go! Pokeball!” Ash said as he threw the safari ball. Okay, so he shouted Pokeball instead. So? He’s done this before. Anyway, as the ball hit Oddish, it floated in the air and shot the traditional red beam that takes the creature inside. As Oddish vanished from view, the ball landed back on the ground and shook back and forth, usually a sign that the Pokemon was trying to fight its way back out. But Oddish was so weak, its attempts to escape were unsuccessful. Ash smiled as the red light from the front of the Pokeball went away, which always meant the creature had given up and was officially captured. Ash picked it up and raised it in the air!

“Cool! I got an Oddish!” Ash said. Pikachu gave the V sign to Ash to signify victory for the match.

Brock and May were so busy trying to catch Pokemon, they hadn’t noticed Ash make his capture.

“Hey, Ash! Did you catch anything yet?” Brock asked.

“I sure did. Check out this Oddish!” Ash said. He pulled out the safari ball he had used to capture Oddish and threw it to the ground. As soon as it hit the ground, the ball opened and Oddish was free once again. This time, it appeared to be smiling as it was now with Ash.

“Whoa… lucky you, Ash. I haven’t had much luck so far.” May said as Torchic displayed its sad face.

“Yeah. Oddish, return!” Ash said. He pointed the ball towards Oddish so that the red beam may zap the Pokemon and allow it to re-enter its new home. But all of a sudden, Ash looked to see the front of the ball flashing red rapidly. Then he could feel the ball get very hot. He had to drop it to avoid burning his hands.

“Hey! That thing’s hot!” Ash said. But nothing could prepare the trainer for what happened next. Suddenly the beam shot himself instead of Oddish! Even more surprising was the fact that Ash was now glowing red all over, like a Pokemon would.

“Ash! What’s going on?” Brock said.

“I don’t know! Someone help…” Before Ash could finish, his body suddenly faded into the red light as it was drawn into the safari ball! Everyone gasped at what they had just seen.

“No way!” May shouted.

“It just trapped him inside!” Brock said.

“That’s impossible! Isn’t the beam only supposed to affect Pokemon?” Max said. May decided to pick up the Pokeball, desperate to know if her friend was okay.

“Ash, are you all right?” May said.

“May, is that you? Hurry up and get me out of this thing!” Ash’s voice said. They couldn’t see him, but at least they knew he was okay.

“Quick, May, let’s get him out of there.” Max said.

“Oh, right…” May said. She then threw the safari ball towards the ground. As it hit, the safari ball opened. Everyone gasped once again.

Again they couldn’t believe what they had just seen. Ash was there, all right… but he had shrunk! Almost like a few years ago when Sabrina nearly trapped Ash and his friends inside her dollhouse, except not as small this time around. He looked about six inches tall.

“Ash!?!?” The group shouted in unison. Ash immediately could tell why they were so shocked. They were so big compared to his size.

“Uh… yeah. I think I already get the hint, guys.” Ash said.

“But how? How did this happen?” May asked.

“I really don’t know. This is something I’ve never dealt with before. At least… not in this case.” Brock said.

“Aren’t you guys going to think of a way we can possibly reverse this effect? I can’t stand being smaller than a Diglett! Or Pikachu for that matter.” Ash said. Pikachu stood next to its shrunken trainer so that it could see that he was fine. Of course, seeing Pikachu’s 8-inch height to compared to his own current 6-inch height didn’t make Ash feel any better.

“Ash is right. We really should get him out of here so that no wild Pokemon eat him up or something.” Max said.

“I agree. But where can we keep him?” May asked. Brock did some thinking before offering a suggestion.

“Hey! I got it! Maybe the Pokemon Center can fix up Ash. You know how they specialize in healing Pokemon inside their balls? Perhaps we can cure Ash of whatever it is that’s making the safari ball think he’s a Pokemon!” Brock said.

“Hey, that’s a good idea, Brock! Let’s give it a shot! The nearest Pokemon Center is the one in Lilycove City.” Max said.

“If you guys don’t mind, I’ll safeguard Ash until we get there.” May said. As Brock and Max gathered their materials to hit the road, May walked up to the shrunken Ash. For Ash, it was obviously an overwhelming feeling to be seeing someone as pretty as May tower over him. May had become a good friend of Ash in the short time they’ve been together in the Hoenn region. He watched as May kneeled down to pick up the safari ball off the ground. Then, May commanded the ball to shoot its return laser at Ash, thus placing him back inside.

As the group made their way to Lilycove City, they were unaware of the dasteredly Team Rocket spying on them.

“Well, just as my luck figured, the twerps are in the Safari Zone doing what we do best.” Jessie said.

“Yes, except we do it much better!” James said.

“Even if our attempts are always in failure.” Jessie said, “Say, isn’t there something odd with this picture?”

“They don’t have lunch with them?” James said. Jessie slapped James silly for that, well, silly remark.

“We just had lunch, you goofball! I’m talking about the twerps. I don’t see them all together.” Jessie said.

“Yeah… the one with the Pikachu must’ve split and decided to find the uselessness in him.” Meowth said. James then looked right at Meowth in the eyes.

“Y’know, you do bring up a good point.” James said.

“What? About the Pikachu?” Meowth asked.

“Don’t you both see? With the twerp gone, we can easily take Pikachu away from them! It’ll be an easy victory for Team Rocket! We can ease off at the speed of light!” Jessie said.

“Or we can always prepare to fight!” James said.

“That’s ri… HEY!!! We agreed to save the motto for later, you dimwits! Come on, we gotta follow them into the Pokemon Center!” Meowth said. Wobbuffet appeared to give his useless words of wisdom before the group left.

Meanwhile, inside the Pokemon Center of Lilycove City, May, Max, and Brock all approached Nurse Joy at the desk. Strangely enough, there was little activity going on inside the center, but this was good since there wouldn’t much of a chance that the tiny Ash would get looked at by the crowd.

“Um… Nurse Joy?” May said. She was doing her best not to divulge the secret of Ash stuck inside one of the safari balls.

“Hi! How can I help you today?” Joy asked. Before May could say anything, Brock jumped in her way.

“I’d like to be your boyfriend! We have been destined to meet each other!” Brock said. But May pushed him aside and was now standing in front of Joy once again. Brock held his head down in shame.

“I’d like for you to heal this safari ball. I’m getting a strange feeling it’s treating my… um, Pokemon… a bit strange.” May said.

“Well… anything you say. Though I’m sure your Pokemon are just fine.” Joy said. May handed her the safari ball that Ash was in. She was hoping that the healing machine could possibly fix Ash’s condition.

From that point, the group let Nurse Joy do her thing. She placed the ball into the healing machine and activated it shortly thereafter. After a few seconds, however, Joy started to notice the ball vibrate badly. It even started to glow red!

“Wha…? What’s going on!?” Joy said to herself. The ball then opened itself, and out came the shrunken Ash. He went flying through the air before crashing right into Joy’s chest area. He slowly tumbled down Joy’s body as she stood startled at what she was seeing. Luckily, Ash grabbed onto the hem of Joy’s outfit and hung on for dear life. Fortunately, Joy was right there for the rescue as she allowed the tiny trainer to drop down to the palm of her hand. Joy looked down on Ash as if he were a toy.

“Are you okay? Are you even a Pokemon?” Joy asked.

“No, Nurse Joy… I’m Ash Ketchum! The… 6-inch-tall Pokemon master from Pallet Town.” Ash said with a long face. Joy then turned her attention back to Ash’s friends.

“How did he get like this!?” Joy shouted, demanding an answer.

“We were catching Pokemon in the safari ball when suddenly one of Ash’s safari balls went haywire on him!” Max said.

“The laser that traps the Pokemon inside ended up zapping himself and trapped him inside, and somehow it shrunk him down to that size.” May said.

“But that can’t be. All Pokeballs are designed only to trap Pokemon.” Joy said.

“Not this one, apparently. This is very strange.” Brock said. Silence ensued for a few seconds. Finally, Joy came up with an interesting idea.

“Wait a minute! I just remembered… I have a friend who lives in the Johto region named Kurt. He’s actually the creator of the many different kinds of Pokeballs throughout the world. A true genius at his work.” Joy said.

“Oh yeah! I remember Kurt. He’s the one that made those special Pokeballs for us in Johto, right Brock?” Ash said from Joy’s hands.

“Yeah. Sometimes I wonder what he ever found out from the GS Ball.” Brock said.

“He may be our best bet as brilliant as he sounds.” May said.

“Alright. I’ll get him on the line to come over. It may take a little time considering he is coming from Johto.” Joy said.

“While we’re waiting for him, Brock and I should take the safari ball back to the Safari Zone. Perhaps the people there may know something.” Max said. Joy nodded.

“That’s a good idea. Perhaps they may know something since they are in charge of the balls, after all.” Joy said. Brock nodded and offered to have the safari ball from Joy.