Have been a bit busy over the weekend so this is a quick one, but hoping to make some better ones soon.

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There used to be rules. It used to be civilized. Some fresh-faced youngster would cross your path on the trail out of Pallet Town, you'd teach them an important, painful lesson, and then you'd drag their comatose body back to the Pokecenter for the bargain price of half the money in their pockets. The Ánthro Ball, the latest man-made horror from the Silph Company, had forever darkened what had once been a light-hearted bloodsport between gentlemen. The new breed were no longer striving to be the best there ever was, but the last man standing.

The Bug Catcher's last Weedle fell before the Charmander's flames. The Bug Catcher was already tossing his wallet at the young man's feet. "Good game, kid. You played well," he stammered.

"'Game' 'Play'?" the winning trainer said coldly, stroking a finger over the Ánthro Balls arrayed on his belt. "Do I look like I'm playing?"

The Bug Catcher's legs turned to jelly. He slid back through the dirt. "Please," he begged. "I've given you everything I have."

"But I don't want what you have. I want you."

The Ánthro Ball struck him in the chest, snapping open to release its payload of digitized PokéDNA in a blast of red energy, blending him with the disassembled data of the last Pokémon it had captured - a female Pikachu. He fought back the changes with everything he had, as sprouting yellow fur spread out from the point of impact. Through force of will, he slowed its advance, holding on to the last shreds of humanity.

Not even pausing for the merge to complete, the youth picked up the ball and pointed it at his defeated opponent.

The Bug Catcher swung out with his bug net to intercept the recall ray but it was only a matter of time, as his limbs shrank and feminized, that it became unwieldy. The trainer's ray hit him, a second ripple of red energy racing through his body, converting the Pokéfied parts of his body back into energy to be trained back into the Ball's containment fields. He felt his new fur-covered breasts and rodent-like limbs swiftly vanish. The wave of digitization moved up his neck, racing to overtime the slow line of fur creeping up beneath his chin.

"I suggest you surrender to the changes," the young trainer advised coldly. "The Poké Ball can't digitize human flesh. Better to live as a Pokémon, than be a human head left behind in the dirt."