All Ash Ketchums are 18+

"... And so I inherited the device after Bill's unfortunate accident," Professor Oak rambled as he led his protégé, Ash Ketchum, through the research center towards the teleporter. "They warned me never to use it, but one man's disaster is another man's opportunity! We could advance the field of human-pokémon relations by decades with this technology."

If Ash had been listening, he might have noticed that Professor Oak was skirting widely around the details of precisely what the machine did. But he wasn't. He'd just seen something infinitely more exciting. "Oh boy, new pokémon!" he exclaimed, running to the creatures in the wire cages next to the teleporter. But these didn't look like any pokémon he recognised, except perhaps a repulsive smoothie of a grimer and ditto. Most of the creatures were lumpy and oozing, masses of inside-out organs with more mouths than eyes.

Even the pokédex, a comprehensive encyclopaedia of all known pokémon, struggled to ascertain what they were. It returned garbled data and missing numbers for any of these misshapen things he pointed it at, except one. Its glitching screen labelled the creature a "Squirmandasaur", tentatively assigning a Fire/Poison/Water/Grass Type, which was of course impossible.

"Are these pokémon, professor?" Ash asked uncertainly.

"Oh yes! Some are several in fact," Oak replied breezily. "Ah, here we are. Now if I read the instructions correctly, this dial should power on the machine. You're definitely willing to go through with this? I guarantee it will give you an unrivalled understanding of pokémon."

"Whatever helps me become a better pokémon trainer, professor," Ash exclaimed eagerly.

And beat Gary to the Elite Four, he thought silently.

At the rear of the research center, near to where the doors opened out onto the fenced enclosures that held the Professor's stock of pokémon for study and breeding, was the hulking apparatus of the teleporation device and its three booths, each the size and shape of a phonebox, all attached via thick metal cables. Two of these booths were empty and located at opposite sides of the room. In the third booth was a nervous-looking, trembling pikachu with a pretty pink bow on its head.

The hum of the device powering up had the distinct tone the Pokémon Storage System made whenever it stored or retrieved his pokémon. Energy discharges crackled within the machine, and Ash began to wish he'd been paying more attention to Oak's lecture. He vaguely recalled mentions of 'digitization' and 'conversion'...

"Um. This is safe, right?"

"What is safety compared to progress?" Oak said, yanking levers on the device's terminal. Noticing Ash's hesitation, he added, "Your friend, Gary, went through the device just this morning and it worked perfectly." He patted a pokéball on his belt proudly.

Well if his rival had ventured this, Ash wasn't about to let him get a leg up in the competition. As Oak swung open the door of the empty booth, Ash practically skipped inside it. Oak sealed it tightly closed behind before returning to the console and flicking a switch

A crimson ray lanced up from the platform at Ash's feet, turning his flesh into energy in an instant. Ash's silhouette collapsed into a ball of red light, which was drained into the machine.