The little bubblegum Mew gave an annoyed huff as it drifted amidst the dense forest foliage. The day had gotten off to a fantastic start. She’d finally managed to escape that stuffy laboratory, filled with boring humans in lab coats who thought that creating her meant they could do whatever they wanted. The scientists weren’t cruel to her, mind, but other than that they didn’t care much about her feelings on their experiments, nor about paying attention to her at much of any other time. At least outside of a strictly-observational sense. There was no play, there was no fun, just boredom and gray walls.

But today, she’d managed to sneak out and got to finally see the outside world! It was amazing at first, seeing all the many colors and varied flora and Pokémon of the outside world! Sure, she’d been given instinctual knowledge of what stuff like that looked like, but this was her first time genuinely seeing it. It was wonderful and liberating... at least, until she met her first trainer.

That trainer specialized in Electric-type Pokémon, but was apparently willing to make an exception for a legendary Pokémon like Mew. She tried explaining that she wasn’t a traditional Mew, but instead a sort of “imitation Mew” made of gum, but that proved to be a mistake: now she wasn’t just a legendary Pokémon, but a talking legendary Pokémon made of gum! Fortunately, gum didn’t particularly have much to fear from electricity, but getting zapped with electricity was still, at the very least, rather annoying.

The next trainer she met wasn’t any better. It was a kid, who decided to send his Pidgey after her. Fortunately, she didn’t have anything more to fear from a Tackle than she did from a Thundershock. It was amusing to see the kid’s reaction when his Pidgey got stuck to her, though. It was a short-lived amusement, as he simply withdrew the Pidgey back into its Pokéball. Just as well, though. Getting the Pidgey off her body when it had gotten itself so thoroughly ensnared would have been a bit annoying, especially since she’d probably have to pull out some loose feathers left behind.

More of the same sorts of encounters kept happening. Trainer after trainer kept trying to capture her. One trainer even went straight to the point, tossing a Quick Ball at her. This ended up giving her some amusement as well, as she watched the look on the trainer’s face as the Quick Ball simply hit her side with an anticlimactic thud, not even attempting to pull her inside. Indeed, being gum, she also had nothing to fear from Pokéballs.

Even so, these continued capture attempts were quite annoying. Even explaining that Pokéballs didn’t work on her didn’t help, as they didn’t believe her. There was one trainer that particularly gave her a scare, in the form of a powerful Ice-type. Thankfully, she managed to give that one the slip. That could have gone very badly for her.

At this point in the day, she was quite peeved. She’d imagined that being out in the wild would give her so much more freedom, but she ended up having to stay in hiding. One part of her wanted to get back at the trainers for being so persistent and annoying. Yet, another part of her wanted at least some company. After all, this whole situation would be so much more bearable if she had even just one friend.

But then an idea came to her: Why not work toward both at once?

Being a gum Mew rather than a true Mew had its downsides, of course. She’d overheard from one of the scientists, for example, that her capacity to learn TM moves would likely be greatly reduced compared to what a true Mew would be capable of. But there were also upsides, abilities she had that no Mew would ever have. And one of those things was the ability to make more gum and reshape said gum how she chose. And she would use that to set her trap, giving her gum an extra ability in this particular case. She wasn’t sure whether this would work, since she’d never tried anything like this before, but it was worth a shot.

And so, she formed some gum, molding it into the shape of a Pokéball. Then she set the gum Pokéball down in some tall grass near one of the forest paths. It was just hidden enough that a trainer might not question why nobody else had claimed it. But it was still a vibrant pink, standing out against the surrounding green, so any trainer who was paying attention would definitely spot it. And so, Mew hid behind a bush nearby to watch her plan unfold.

She waited for a fair while, her patience dwindling. Why was it that, the one time she wanted a trainer to come along, they were taking so long? But after a while, her patience paid off, as she saw a trainer come into view. It was hard to pin down exactly what it was about his expression that gave her this impression, but something about it gave her the feeling that this was a very experienced trainer. If this trainer spotted her, it could be especially bad news...

Being a Pokémon herself, even if not a traditional one, she could understand what other Pokémon were saying. And so, she could tell quite clearly what the trainer’s Pikachu was saying as he pulled on his trainer’s pant leg and pointed. “Ash! Look! Over there!”

Mew tensed up - at least as much as a gum being without muscles could. Part of the knowledge she’d been ‘programmed’ with during her creation was knowledge of particularly famous trainers. Ash Ketchum was one of them. And her knowledge of this trainer, limited though it was, made her all the more glad that neither Ash nor his Pikachu had spotted her.

At the same time, though, it also made her glad that Ash would be the trainer to trigger the gum Pokéball’s trap. She would have been upset if it had turned out to be a jerk or someone similarly unpleasant to spend time with. But what little she knew about Ash was nothing but positive.

There was the risk of Pikachu throwing a wrench in her plans by grabbing the Pokéball first. However, now that Ash had spotted what Pikachu was talking about, he was the one leading the way toward it, which was definitely promising. He kneeled down to get a closer look, as Pikachu drew closer as well. “I’ve never seen a Pokéball like this before...” Ash thought aloud. Then, he did what Mew had been waiting for: He reached down and picked up the Pokéball to examine it more closely.

“Waaah!” Ash called out, standing up and then stumbling back as the gum Pokéball deformed in his hand, losing all shape before coating his hand and wrist.

“Ash! What’s happening?” Pikachu called out. Of course, Ash couldn’t understand Pikachu’s words, though Mew figured he probably got the general gist from context clues and tone of voice. But if all went well, Ash would soon be able to understand Pikachu just fine.

“What’s happeniiiing?” Ash yelled, unknowingly echoing Pikachu’s words as he watched the five thin gum-covered digits on his hand reshape themselves into three digits - two fingers and a thumb - each ending in a bulbous tip. This new hand wouldn’t be as good for manipulating objects as the human hand it was replacing, but the hidden Mew knew that after this, Ash wouldn’t have to worry about doing things in such a boring and mundane way.

Mew didn’t need psychic abilities to tell that Ash was thinking no such thing, though. She did feel a bit bad for making him worry to such a degree, but she had a feeling that he would like it once he discovered what was going on. Plus, after all the harassment she’d had from trainers that day, it did feel good doing a prank on a trainer as a form of indirect payback, especially given her feeling he’d come to enjoy the result of this prank.

Ash grabbed onto his transformed hand with his other one, trying to pull the gum off his hand. Mew knew that wasn’t going to work. It was already too late, after all. It wasn’t just a gum coating on his hand. It was his hand now. Mew had no doubt that Ash could feel that his hand was no longer shaped like a human’s hand. But in his panic, apparently it hadn’t fully dawned on him. But by his expression, Mew could tell that Ash realized what was going on once he tried pulling the gum off his hand, only to feel his gum hand being pulled and stretched, the sensation of his other hand on his gum hand being far too clear for there to be a layer of gum between his two hands. It seemed to Mew that Ash had finally realized that he was being transformed.

Ash’s gum hand was producing more gum now, to coat his other hand. Ash tried pulling his hands apart, but the gum was highly sticky, keeping them stuck together. It was only once his other hand had transformed that he was able to pull them apart, now with remarkable ease. He stared at them both, wide-eyed. “Huh?” He paused for a moment, even as his lower arms were being overtaken and transformed by the same pink gum. “...Mewtwo?” he thought aloud.

“Huh? Mewtwo?” Pikachu asked, still unintelligible to Ash. “Y...You’re right! You’re becoming a pink Mewtwo!”

Ash moved his arms to get a closer look at them as they changed before his eyes. Then he looked again at his hands, flexing his fingers, before looking at a twig on the pathway. Mew could see that an idea had dawned on him. She had a feeling she knew which one, a feeling which was confirmed when Ash held out his new gum hand toward a twig, causing the twig to slowly and unsteadily start to levitate. It took a lot of effort on Ash’s part, though, which made sense to Mew. After all, his transformation had only just begun.

Ash let the stick fall back down to the ground, then looked down, seeing that his chest was now changing to the rather pronounced chest of a Mewtwo. The chest looked almost like a breastplate, albeit minimalist, added to his front. Soon, that “breastplate” formed up around his neck and down his upper back a bit Mew had to sneakily shift her position to get a good look, but from her new vantage point, she could also see what looked almost like a thick tube of gum starting to form from the back of that “breastplate”.

At this point, the transformation was proceeding on three fronts. One was that “hose” growing out. As it grew, it curved back toward his head, until finally the end attached itself to the back of his head. Another was his neck, which was quickly covered in gum before being thinned considerably. It looked a tad silly to Mew, seeing that thin neck supporting a human head, but of course she knew that head would change soon.

The third front was Ash’s torso. The gum was spreading over his clothes, breaking them down and converting them to gum just as it was converting his body to gum. Mew felt a bit bad that such stylish clothing would be lost in the transformation, but of course that would be a small price to pay. She wondered if Ash might have noticed, in the midst of this strange situation, that he no longer had a heartbeat and no longer needed to breathe.

Using his developing psychic powers, he slowly levitated his hat off his head and hooked it onto a nearby tree branch. Mew wondered whether he’d done it this way to further experiment with his powers or because he was concerned that the gum might spread to his hat if he took it off by hand. And just as Mew was pondering that, Ash also removed the Pokéballs from his person in the same way, presumably for the same reason, whichever reason that may be.

As Ash’s waist was transforming into gum, so too was his head. It started at the back of his head, where the “tube” had attached itself. His hair was easily being pulled into the spreading gum and transformed, soon leaving his head bereft of hair. As his hair was disappearing, so too were his human ears. At either side of the top of his head formed a large, almost rectangular-looking growth, flat at the top and becoming wider at the base where it attached to the rest of the head. Given how they were positioned, a casual observer would call them flat horns or ears. In a sense they were indeed ears, even if a Mewtwo’s ears didn’t work quite like most ears.

Soon, Ash’s face started changing, starting from below. He felt his mouth turning to gum. When he tried opening his mouth, initially it wouldn’t open, his lips stuck together. “Mmph!” he said, alarmed.

“Ash! Are you okay!?” Pikachu asked.

Ash’s eyes widened. He still couldn’t open his mouth, but he could still communicate, surprising Mew with how quickly he was catching on. “Yeah... I think,” he said telepathically, a message Mew could hear despite it not being intended for her.

“You can understand me?” Pikachu asked.

Ash was able to open his mouth again, as it was now fully transformed, but he still chose to speak telepathically. “Yeah, I can. And you can hear me?”

“Yes!” Pikachu said. At this point, Ash’s mouth and nose were both transformed to gum, forming into a muzzle. Then soon, the rest of his face changed as his head shortened considerably, shifting to the traditional proportions of Mewtwo’s head.

“Can you fly?” Pikachu asked.

“Well, I’ll try,” Ash said as the gum was reaching his hips.. Fortunately, by this point, especially since his head had been transformed, his psychic powers were much closer to fully-developed now. Simply by willing it, he was able to levitate up into the air, watching wide-eyed as his shoes left the dirt. “Hey, I can fly!”

“Great!” Pikachu called out. Mew noticed, though, that the levitation wasn’t as good as it could have been. It seems a bit wobbly, like he was off-balance. At first, she thought it may have simply been inexperience. But while that might have been part of it, she quickly realized that most of it was probably because he didn’t have a tail yet. Even while levitating, the tail was a very helpful tool for balancing. And fortunately for Ash, he wouldn’t have to wait long, as some gum was already starting to push out from behind him, forming the thick base of his new gum tail.

Ash had clearly noticed, as well. He looked back, curling his stubby little tail as best he could to get a look at it. Before long, it was not stubby at all. As it grew longer, the part farther away from the base of the tail became thin. Then, as his tail finished growing, now as long as his new body would be tall once completed, he saw the tip of his new tail thicken a bit. The thicker tip was not as pronounced as it was on a Mew, of course, but it was still quite noticeable.

Ash swished his tail a bit, evidently quite fascinated with it. Mew couldn’t blame him, of course. After all, he’d just grown an entirely new appendage, one which he’d never had before in his life. Or at least, she felt that was a reasonable assumption, despite her incomplete information on him. After all, it wasn’t like people just randomly sprouted tails or turned into Pokémon temporarily or anything like that.

So fascinated was Ash with his new tail that, at first, he didn’t even pay attention to the fact that his legs were changing. By the time he finally gave them a good look, they had mostly transformed. They were fairly thick where they connected to his hips, but below that they were somewhat thin. It was still plenty enough to support his weight, though at the moment he was levitating and didn’t have to worry about that.

Both Ash and Mew watched as the gum took over his ankles, then his feet. On the inner sides of his heels, as they changed, was a large nub. As his feet transformed, they changed from plantigrade to digitigrade. Soon, there were two small, thick toes at the end of each of his new feet, completing his transformation into a gum Mewtwo.

But as Pikachu was staring at his trainer-turned-gum-Pokémon, Ash was now staring at something else. He was staring, now, at the gum Mew who had just come out of hiding. Soon, though, Pikachu got curious and looked where his trainer was looking. “Huh? There’s another one?” Pikachu asked, before slowly approaching Mew.

Mew twirled. “Yep, I’m a gum Pokémon just like he is!”

Pikachu blinked twice. “Gum? That’s what that sweet scent is? You’re both made of gum?”

Mew nodded. “Yeah, I know, pretty weird. Anyway, let’s get outta sight before someone sees you and gets it in their head to try to catch you, eh?”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Ash said. He telekinetically picked his hat back up and placed it atop his head. Now that the transformation was complete, his hat would be safe. Then, he levitated the Pokéballs up and took them with him as he and Pikachu followed Mew into the cover of the dense forest. And with that, Mew had two new friends, plus probably plenty more once Ash introduced his other Pokémon to her. It seemed that just as the day had started well, so too would it end well, despite the annoyances between.