The people searching for him made so much noise but they were so far off course he didn't hear any of it. He slept peacefully throughout the rest of the night despite his best attempts to stay awake. That is, until his stomach started to hurt again. It was of course, hunger that he was feeling. But there was another pain on top of it that seemed to make each hunger pain even worse.

He woke up in the middle of the night to see Beedrill was sleeping. So he got himself some honey and watched Beedrill for a while. He noticed something odd. The feeling when he swallowed, like there was cotton and tissue paper stuffed in the back of his throat, didn't seem to arise when he swallowed the honey. It was thick and rich, and went down smoothly where as even water went down rough. He was wondering if that meant the feeling was gone for good.

He tested it by swallowing without any honey in his mouth. No, the feeling was still there. It was a feeling that was really bothering him.. much like his encounter with Beedrill namely for the fact no one was at all interested in it as he told it back in the hospital. It was like it didn't even matter. This annoyed him to no end. He was determined to find a way to make someone notice.. and thought perhaps that's why he's with Beedrill now. He wants to keep Beedrill to prove to everyone that this event even happened, so that he can rightfully catalog it in his book of experiences.

He saw no point in something happening to him if no one else knew of it. He had been told he hallucinated it all so much that even his mother started to doubt his words on the Beedrill attack. He was far too rebellious to be told something like that. He wanted to take Beedrill back and tell them of his adventure to Beedrill's home, and about sharing Beedrill's honey. He wanted to take some honey back for everyone to try for themselves. That would be fun.

But at least, this was one of his own explanations as to why he was still sitting here. Another he didn't dare to think of was that after his harsh encounter with Swalot, he was determined to wipe the bad image of Pokémon from his mind through befriending a notoriously dangerous Pokémon, and of course, one that was also involved in the attack that cost him his legs. He was subconsciously trying to erase the bad memory from his mind with the good memories of Beedrill, if he could try hard enough to make any happen.

Ash continued to eat honey here at Beedrill's place, waiting for the Beedrill to leave. But come afternoon of day two, Beedrill hadn't bothered to leave. It was starting to annoy Ash that Beedrill was taking so long. Beedrill was out yesterday long before this. Shouldn't he have "bee stuff" to do..?

The search continued off and on for the rest of the second day but had moved from the park to another location ; the forest just outside it. The problem with the famous Persian was that this park and the woods surrounding it were famous for the dense bug population, so much so they held weekly bug catching contests. There were so many hives of Beedrill that there was no single path to follow. Even if they narrowed all hives dens and what-nots to ONLY those belonging to Beedrill, they were still looking for a needle in a haystack. The only one sure way was to look for Ash, not Beedrill. But that had lead nowhere as well.

Ash's stomach continued to hurt, continuously, for almost three or four hours before starting to die down again. It would repeat this throughout the majority of the day. With the pain, his stomach had started to swell. His abdomen hurt to the touch, as if he were bruised, and he began to become increasingly worried of what was happening to him. An allergic reaction occurred to him as a possibility after something else started happening...

Ash's body begun to leak.. a bronze, golden, rather sticky substance. It was completely identical to the honey he'd consumed prior... as if absolutely nothing had happened to it before it left his body. Without any control of it, he spilled honey into his clothes. He became extremely spooked and his face turned beet red. He quickly undid his fly, his belt, and pulled down his pants to get out of them as fast as possible. A long thin sheet of sticky slime trailed from his legs where it had run down, to his pants as he was removing them.

He had absolutely no idea what to make of this. And then he realized it seemed to be honey, itself... Thankfully for him, it was extremely easy to change out of his largely empty pants. His boxer shorts were almost longer than what remained of his legs. But the pant legs were meant to disguise his prosthetic legs which he was currently not even wearing. He wanted to put his pants back on because he was not comfortable with being naked. Even in an empty hollow with an ignorant Beedrill. But his body continued to pour what.. very well seemed to be honey.

Sliding his pants and boxers away from him, he tries to hold himself up on his arms, against the wall, so he doesn't sit in what's draining from his body. He quickly tried to explain to the Pokémon he was sorry for doing this in it's house... "But your honey goes right through me." He said. He was worried it was making him sick. Because his abdomen hurt to the touch after he'd consumed it. He was in much more than just hunger pains after ingesting the honey as well. He whined loudly, and a bit over dramatically. He wished he'd never eaten the stupid sugary concoction. It only now seemed to be causing him a great deal of discomfort.

He tried his hardest to help push the honey out. It came out with no effort, in an uncontrollable steady amount, so he figured that with effort, it'd be over faster. But it didn't seem to end. In fact, he was exhausted even trying after the first hour and a half so he gave up and let it run it's own course. The boy began to become frightened by the second hour. He was too tired to keep propped up on his arms like this and the puddle had filled the entire small octagon-like cell that Beedrill had begun to build around Ash. He stood in the puddle no matter what he did to avoid it. His legs weren't exactly the longest anymore, he couldn't stand over the puddle. There was only so far he could make them go.

He pushed off of the wall and stumbled forward two or three short steps on his stumps and falls onto his chest over the side of the wax and paper comb cell. He lays there and grips the edge of the next cell over. He pressed his lips tight together as if on the verge of tears he was so embarrassed by this. He lay there waiting for the flow to stop and very gradually, it does. His abdomen isn't so swollen anymore when it's over with. He reaches down to touch it, and confirms that it's much smaller now. The pain in his abdomen is gone but it still hurts to the touch.

Very slowly, Ash climbs up out of the cell and into a dryer one. He uses his pants to, as best as he can, wipe the honey off of his body but his thighs and nubs have become so sticky he would need more than one or two bathing sessions to ever get fully clean again. As he scoots away from the other cell, he drags his bare bottom across dirt and other, darker sediment. It sticks to his body like sprinkles on a cupcake. He tries harder to wipe them off of his body using his hands now that his pants are soaked and sticky, themselves... but no luck.

He sighs and so his lower body doesn't get cold, he hugs the wadded pants over his lap and sinks down a little into the dry cell. "Mister Beedrill, that's no more honey for me. I think it made me sick.." The boy, exhausted with his predicament already, stared blandly at the small hexagonal cell he sat in. "C'mon, you guys.. you gotta get me out of here." He thought to himself.

And from there, an entire week had since gone by. He waited and waited for Beedrill to leave the nest but it never seemed to. At some point when he'd fallen asleep that week, Beedrill had left the nest only once. And he awoke to an empty den. It returned later.. But he was greatly upset that he'd missed it. It was his only chance this entire week to escape like he'd planned. His pants had become hardened like stone, bundled up where they'd dried. There wasn't much hope of putting them back on. Even washing them when he got out of this place seemed like too much to ask of the trousers. They were pretty much ruined at this point.

He had gotten so hungry within the first day after "officially quitting" his honey diet that after failed attempts at encouraging Beedrill to go find an apple tree and bring different food back to him-also that this would give him a chance to escape by clinging onto the bug, that he eventually gave up all together and began eating the same honey he knew now was making him ill.

After a whole week, his body had swollen up again. But was bigger now than ever. It was big enough to stretch his already-thin-black-shirt even thinner and he was pouring the honey-like ooze at a constant. Yet his swelling wouldn't go down any. He knew that was most likely because he wouldn't stop eating the honey from the Beedrill's cells. But he had nothing else to eat. And he was beginning to devour excessive amounts just to keep his energy up. He was remaining ever-so-sluggish because of the total lack of anything GOOD in this diet of his.

His abdomen was achy and he was struggling to stay awake. He began to feel a lot like a Snorlax now. All he could muster the energy to do was eat more of Beedrill's honey because of his extreme hunger that was onset by his lacking of all essential vitamins and minerals, and the COMPLETE lack of protein. And with that, he couldn't keep himself awake for long periods of time. There was nothing to do or look at besides talking to Beedrill, and.. staring at Beedrill...

He, a couple times while half asleep, began to try and eat the honey his own body had produced which had pooled up so high in the cell he was in, that he was practically bathing in it. But he stopped himself every time he caught it and would then eat from a different cell instead.

Both he and Beedrill had begun to fill the entire hive with more of the sweetened, sticky substance. Ash, himself, had begun to become almost hopelessly depressed.. He'd only become depressed in absolutely dim and grim situations. Many of which, he'd cried in, in the past. Like the time he and his Pokémon nearly suffocated and froze to death in the snow cave in. He accepted death then because it only made sense. But there was no death here, no suffocation, no acid baths, no freezing subzero temperatures. It was just a trap he couldn't get out of and what seemed like an endless eternity waiting on one stupid bug to leave it's home.

Trot trot trot trot, tktktktktktktk-and the almost mimicking "Togitogitogitogitogih..!" as Misty and Brock ran along side Pikachu. Togepi chanted happily with every footstep ; it thought it was being bounced in the air. The group made it back to the gates.

"HI!" Misty shouted in a falsely over joyous voice "We're here for the bug catching Contest. It's Tuesday! We just came here from Goldenrod and thought we'd slip by and check it out!"

Brock and Pikachu nodded intelligently.

"Save it, I know who you kids are. You're from a week ago. And no, the contest is closed."

The group all hollered at once-Pikachu. repeating in it's own "Pika" language "But it's Tuesday!"

"It's closed because you opened an investigation and a missing person's search in this area. Because-a you it's now off limits and I don't get a paycheck this week. Come back in another seven day."

. . . . .

"ALRIGHT LISTEN, WE HAVE HAD IT WITH YOU. WE WANT TO HELP OUR FRIEND AND WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE NO FOR AN ARRRHRHAHA-!" Misty burst into a cat like squeal as she got grabbed up into Brock's arms and had her mouth covered with his hand.

"Misty! That's enough. The man said no.."

Misty wriggled around a few times and then finally stopped resisting. She opened her eyes and let out a huff. Glaring up at the taller, gate watcher..

Pikachu cloned the redhead's glare, hollering what Misty could not with her mouth still covered "Pikapika..!"

Brock let go of Misty and she almost collapsed to her knees. Summoning up all of her strength, she catches herself and reaches up to hug her own arms. Bent forward in defeat, she gazed listlessly over her arms at nothing in particular.

Brock sat his hand on the girl's shoulder and the group slowly turned around to head back toward Goldenrod.

Togepi, squished against the girl's chest, blinks twice and tears start to well up in it's little eyes.

Pikachu takes a few minutes longer to stare down the man at the gate before hopping after the others in an attempt to catch up with them. "Tktktktktk" ; the sound it's paws made as it hopped.