A commission for  zohaku
Cover Art a commission for Zohaku by  Redflare500

A more grown up Ash still wants to be a Pokemon MASTER! But being a Master is about more than just battles, and as he cares for a Ditto trained in imitating Pokemon illness, Ash finds himself undergoing a strange change.

Ash Ketchum -> Aeroplane TF

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There were always new things to learn when you were trying to become a Pokemon Master. Being a strong, smart, talented, experienced trainer, while a significant part of it, was not the only part of it. Being a strong trainer meant just that; being a strong trainer, and that was not Ash’s goal. His goal was to be a Pokemon Master, and so after winning a few champion titles in the regions of the world, among other titles both for his heroics and prowess in battle, Ash began searching for other ways to improve his abilities.
One of the many ways he considered to improve himself was by taking care of sick Pokemon. A Pokemon Master should have the ability to help any Pokemon that needs help, injured or sick, but…admittedly Ash didn’t really have any experience with that. Back when he was adventuring with friends, if his Pokemon got sick Brock would help take care of them, and he hadn’t often had to deal with it anyways, so he turned to the one person he knew would be able to help.
“Oh yeah, I have just the Pokemon to help you with this,” Lily the PokeWitch had said, and handed Ash a PokeBall, “It’s a Ditto, trained for just this kind of situation!” she said with a proud smile, “PokeWitches need to learn how to treat Pokemon too after all.”
And with a thanks, Ash took the PokeBall and headed off to his campsite where he was learning how to live more self-sufficiently while adventuring, once more something that he felt any Pokemon Master should be able to do, and so far it was going well for him. It was near a forest, where Pikachu had set up a little hammock between two small trees, and a wide, open field, perfect for practicing combat were Ash and Pikachu so inclined.
“Alright, I’ve mastered Pika Pox, the Salazzle Itch, Corsola Rash, Zoroark’s Revenge, Graveler Crumbles,” Ash closed the book proudly, “Aah, this is easy!” it had only taken him around a fortnight to study all these diseases and, with Ditto’s help, Ash had practiced dealing with them, and now?
He felt like an expert! If he saw a Torkoal with Cinder Blocks, he’d be able to swoop right in and help that fire-type out, with no problem and no hesitation! “I wish we’d brought more than the beginner book of Pokemon illnesses, these are too easy, I could use a challenge,” Ash sighed, tossing the book onto his nearby backpack and laying back on his bedroll, Pikachu resting in a little hammock nearby, sunglasses on, and little water bottle with a straw in it at his side, resting and contented. On the other side of him the borrowed Ditto was just jiggling contentedly to itself, a dopey smile on its face like usual, just vibing, living its life until it was called to action.
Had the Ditto heard Ash’s wistful wish and decided to fulfill it? Was it a twist of fate? Was it a passing Jirachi granting the wish? Or some other strangeness in Ash’s life which, admittedly, was so full of such strangeness that any of those wouldn’t be unexpected for him.
Whatever the cause, Ditto coughed.
“Oh?” Ash perked up; was this another sickness? They’d covered everything in the book, so was Ditto testing Ash on identifying the disease? Or was it a new one? Either way excitement filled Ash; this was what he was hoping for! A challenge!
“Alright! Let’s see,” Ash said, approaching Ditto, Pikachu nearby not even perking up at this development; to the electric mouse Pokemon this was just another day of vacation, so Ash was on his own.
“Hmm, you look fine?” Ash looked over the Ditto, which hadn’t tried to change its form yet, but it wasn’t smiling anymore, it looked a little uncomfortable, so indeed there WAS something wrong with it. Real or fake didn’t matter; a Ditto could copy any sickness perfectly if it was trained to, so this was a real test for Ash. “No markings, you’re holding your shape, let’s feel you?” Ash reached over to the Ditto, who didn’t retreat like the professional he was, letting the trainer examine him.
Immediately Ash felt something wrong with the Ditto. Despite their looks, a Ditto had a solid feel to it normally; you could grab a Ditto, despite their goopiness, but with this Ditto?
It was slimy, and far, far squishier, like it could lose cohesion at any moment.
“Hmm,” Ash wracked his brain, there had to be a sickness similar to this one he could work off. The book hadn’t included any sicknesses specific to Dittos, but…had there been a sickness that could affect Grimers?
The Doldrums maybe? It was more common in Slugmas and Magcargos, but it did result in them becoming gooier and drippier, perhaps this was similar? Ash pulled his hands away, covered in a clear, sticky slime which he tried to flick off from his hands but it just stuck. Whatever, I can clean my hands afterward, Ash decided, opening his pack, the slime not seeming to stick to it as he nudged around the contents inside the bag. There were potions for that, easily acquirable at any store, and just spray on and within a few minutes your gooey Pokemon would be back to a more stable level of viscosity.
If he had been paying attention, he would have noticed the clear goop that the Ditto had left on him was only sticking to him, and spreading up his arms, but he was too busy being proud at his medical skills as he applied the spray to the Ditto to realize anything was wrong.
“Feeling better Ditto?” Ash asked, and in response the pink blob burbled happily, smiling a little more than usual. Ash gently touched it; once more back to its weird gooey but somewhat solid physique! With the Ditto cured, Ash’s job was done, pride filled him as he relaxed, rising to his feet, unaware of the slight sheen his entire body now had; the goop had spread all over him and the Pokemon Master hadn’t even noticed!
With his task complete, and completed quite easily with no complications in Ash’s mind, the Pokemon Master relaxed, letting Ditto happily ooze his way away, and letting the warm sun beam down on the human, making him nice and cozy, proud of his success, and ready to just chill for a bit.
And for a few, contenting, precious moments, it was exactly that; perfectly relaxing. And then suddenly he felt his rear pushing against the ground, lifting him up.
“What?” he blinked, reaching back, feeling the seat of his pants, but instead of the butt in jeans he knew from years of familiarity, he felt something stiff and smooth. Not jeans, not rump, what was it? He stood quickly, twisting to look at it, his jaw dropping at the sight. His jeans were smoothed out over his rear, or perhaps smoothed out together? Jeans and body merging together? Either way, it was smooth, and metal, pushing out in a tubular shape, smooth-headed rivets holding the metal together, and despite the impossibility of it, it reminded Ash of nothing so much as the tail end of an aeroplane.
He ran his hand along it. Smooth, metal, little seams and rivet bumps, but no denim and no flesh, and he could feel his hand along the tail; it was part of him. Any ordinary person would be freaking out as they realized that their backside had suddenly become the tail end of a plane, but Ash Ketchum was a Pokemon Master. He’d stood up to the very gods of his world, he’d thrown a punch at a Mewtwo before he’d won his first Pokemon League, he had experienced so many strange events that he was pretty sure no other trainer in the entire world had experienced even a fraction of the oddities he had.
Still, having an aeroplane tail for a backside was pretty weird. How had this even happened? And what could he do about it? He had never heard of somebody sprouting an aeroplane tail!
As his thoughts raised, a little metal bulge formed under the hand resting on his tail, drawing his gaze and attention. A rather thin bit of shiny blue metal was growing under his fingers; he was growing a vertical stabilizer.
I need to deal with this quick, Ash thought to himself, mind racing with options. Was it a Pokemon disease? Was it related to the sickness the Ditto had? Was this because of some crazed megalomaniac seeking to take over the world again? Was it an abused, powerful Pokemon taking its revenge? He’d dealt with most of those before, and unfortunately this did not seem to be a problem he could solve by having Pikachu throw a Thunderbolt at it. So what could he do?
Am I hollow? His mind flipped from the calm-panic of his situation to curiosity with the practiced ease of experience, so he balled his hand up into a fist, and rapped his plane tail.
“Aaah,” he gasped, hearing a hollow echo throughout his body. The change was certainly continuing, so he was rapidly running out of time to fix the problem! He knocked against his chest; the skin was still skin, but the bones beneath? Metal, and already merging it seemed; allowing him to still ring out a hollow sound. He was empty inside already! And his hand…It was feeling stiff, harder to move it.
He grunted, trying to curl his fingers as they stiffened straight out, flattening like a Lugia’s hand, albeit with more metallic shininess, and very swiftly they began to merge together, leaving him with a wide, flat wingtip as there was no other word for what his hand had become. I’m going to be an aeroplane!
That was the thought running through his head. He couldn’t think of a way to stop it, or a reason for why it was happening, was he panicking? He wasn’t even sure; part of him was…excited? He wanted to feel the air running along his fuselage, and the difference of air pressure lifting him into the air, flying like a Pidgeot! Or perhaps more accurately like a Salamence or Latias.
Not a normal thought, but neither was turning into a machine.
“Woah!” he cried out as he slipped on the ground, feeling his foot…rolling? He fell on his tail, rolling onto his side, looking down to see that just like his backside and arm before it his foot had joined in the transformation, rounding out on the end of his metal leg into two wheels, coated in thick rubber, easily rolling along the grass, like they were just freshly greased and given only the finest ball bearings straight from Kalos, which nonetheless made it hard for him to stand on the foot, and soon in general, as his other foot, shoe and all, was curling inwards. No pain, just a little pressure as it assumed an identical, round shape to his other foot.
He rose back onto them, wobbling, his arms extended to try to help him balance. One arm, the metal wing, was a lot better at it than his human arm, but that arm wasn’t the next part to begin changing. No, instead Ash felt his mouth growing into a wide grin, his nose stretching forward in front of his eyes. He gasped; his last gasp before the grin became nothing more than paint on metal, watching his nose rounding out into a very familiar conical shape, with little rivets around the cone at the end of it! It was the front of a plane, growing bigger and bigger! The trainer could do nothing now but try not to fall as his head grew longer, a slight frown on his eyes as they could still move.
I’m getting so big already, how big of a plane am I going to be? The Pokemon master wondered, his still human hand reaching up and rubbing at his nose; feeling the cool, smooth metal, and also feeling his hand changing. With every caress of his steel body, his soft, human skin hardened, smoothing out into a shiny metal, fingers once more merging. It wouldn’t be long before he had another wing, and since his other wing was already stiffening into an outstretched position, Ash was sure he didn’t have much time at all before he couldn’t move.
He looked to Pikachu, his electric mouse still snoozing cozily in the little hammock he had set up. Pikachu can help me, Ash realized, and called out Pikachu’s name!
Tried to, more accurately, for by the time Ash decidedon this course of action his mouth had already begun changing; no longer was it human lips, tongue, teeth, and all those other important features of a working human mouth, rather instead he realized with some level of horror that it had been changed. He reached up with his still working hand, fingers clicking metalically against his metal face. While he still had a nose, for now, and a rough semblance of a human face, his ears were gone, smoothed out into metal, and his mouth was nothing more than a wide, grinning paintjob.
His eyes widened, brows lowering in concern as he watched his nose pushing forwards, pulling the rest of his face with it; smoothing out into a much more rounded conical shape, rivets and seams forming along it appropriately, marking his making that never happened.
Worried? Yes, but Ash still couldn’t truly find it within himself to panic. Sure, he wasn’t really looking like himself, and all his skin was turning a silvery metal colour, and he hadn’t been able to even wake up Pikachu to alert his Pokemon or get help, and he had no idea why this was happening but he couldn’t panic or freak out. He’d lived through some weird stuff, and some stuff that risked not just his life but the entire Pokemon world, so he could handle being turned into an aeroplane, he could handle it, and even be excited.
Yes, he was excited! He could feel that excitement filling him, pushing out at his metal interior, flooding him with that excitement and eagerness to not just fly, but to carry cargo. A strange feeling, the trainer admitted to himself, but the thought of having large, heavy boxes filled with products that would soon line the shelves of PokeMarts, or restock the pharmacy of the Pokemon Centre filled him with as much excited anticipation as he felt before a huge Pokemon match.
With his nosecone growing out in front of him further, his belly, chest, and neck barreling out into a matching broad size, and with them growing, despite his interior being mostly hollow aside from struts and supports and wires and such, he was growing quite heavy. His very centre of gravity was shifting, pulling him, down, down! The ground rushed up to meet him, Ash would’ve closed his eyes to brace for the impact but those two had become no more than a painted-on decoration so he could only watch, but thankfully the ground suddenly stopped racing towards him as two new sets of wheels, sprouted from his wings, supporting Ash and making him look upwards just slightly, like he was already on track to soar into the sky.
But he couldn’t soar into a sky, not yet at least. His body kept growing, lifting him even further from the ground, while a weight began to tug at his limbs, right above his second set of wheels, a feeling that, for the moment, made him feel grounded when he felt so close to flying. He wanted to look, to see what was adding so much weight, but he couldn’t; his eyes were locked ahead, looking to the sky.
Luckily, he soon realized what they were for as another tingle of excitement ran through him, like an electric spark running through all his cables, bringing the new engines and turbines that had just formed life.
BvvvvrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
The massive propellers began to spin, taking a moment to warm up before revving into their full power, Pikachu letting out a surprised yelp as the engines roared to life, waking up the dozing mouse who fell onto the goopy Ditto who merely blankly smiled at the unfolding events.
Pikachu stared up, shocked at what he saw. A massive, silvery aeroplane, utterly huge, big, broad, tubular, with large, wide wings, mighty engines crying out like fearsome dragons, blasting wind through their turbines, as at the front of the plane a painted on grin and happy eyes beneath dark painted markings that could look like spiky hair made the plane recognizable to Pikachu as…
“Pikapi?” Pikachu asked, as the plane began to move. Slowly at first, trundling down the field on his wheels, before picking up speed. Faster and faster Ash moved, he felt the earth beneath him zooming by, before he began feeling the air lifting him up under his wings.
Yes, let’s do this! The Pokemon Master thought, the earth beneath him falling away as, for the first time since he was transformed into a ghost many years ago, he flew under his own power, soaring into the skies, air rushing over his body, through his turbines, carrying him off.
He felt free; excited! Thoughts of what had happened lost in the rush of wind over his sleek form; all he wanted to do now was fly! And maybe by the time he felt like landing he’d figure out what had happened, and how to change himself back. But that was a question for later!
For now there was only sky and an aeroplane eager to test himself out!

ERK! ERK! EEEEERK!
The ground burnt at Ash’s wheels, it didn’t hurt, but he could feel it tugging at him, scraping him, leaving bits of his thick rubber wheels on the asphalt as he landed, the mighty aeroplane finally having descended from the heavens back to Earth. It was late evening, and in the small town a little ways away from Ash’s campsite was a little cargo aeroport. No planes expected, so Ash was able to land safely, slowing down bit by bit, the weight of gravity once again asserting itself over Ash, holding him down as he finally came to a stop near the edge of the runway.
If he could breath, he would’ve let out a great sigh of relief. Flying had been fun, but the longer he flew, after that initial exhilaration, the more worried he had become about landing, about figuring out what had happened to himself, and while he tried to clear his mind, once the sun began setting he decided he too had to come down, and so he did.
Now that he was landed, back on earth, he had to answer those questions. What to do now that he was stuck as an aeroplane? Or could he change back?
I suppose I’ll have to try? Ash thought, trying to focus, but since he didn’t know why he had transformed himself, what was he supposed to do to change back? Think it? Feel it? Wish it? Imagine it?
Just try them all and see if any work! Darkness fell over him as he tried, but Ash wasn’t tired, feeling no issue with staying up and trying everything even after his long flight.
Think, feel, wish, imagine, hope…
Think like a Pokemon.
Imagine feeling human.
Wish upon one of the many stars twinkling high above him.
Eventually…he felt something. At first just a little twinge in the tip of his wing, but soon he felt something else; he felt movement! He struggled to look, managing to turn his eyes just enough to look at his wing; and if he could have gasped, he would have! He still had a wing, but now it wasn’t a plane wing. Despite the metal, silvery sheen, there was no doubt what Ash was staring at, as he had seen it several times before in his life. Despite the engine still on it, and the wheels coming down off that engine, his plane wing had begun changing into a Lugia wing!
Maybe I can transform now, just like a Ditto? Ash mused to himself, letting the changes continue. I might need some practice, he mentally added as he felt the slow change continue, excitement once again gripping him. If he could transform…
Well, a plane was just the start! As was a Lugia! His painted grin felt perfect for his mood as his heavy, metal wing slowly descended to the ground, the wheels and engine retracting up into it. Perhaps tonight would be another good night for a flight? Or a swim? Or maybe even a jaunt into space, or on an adventure with Pikachu! So many possibilities, what to do first?