Dan is Annoyed with your Ridiculousness

	There was a certain zone that drew in trainers from all over the map.  This zone was not replete with shiny Pokémon, which everyone seemed to be crazy about these days.  This zone did not have any species that were particularly rare, as any trainer would seek to help complete their collection.  There was nothing elite or remarkable about it except for the simple fact that it was full of rubber birds.  Flying type Pokémon were notoriously weak against lightning.  Those found in this area had a rubbery coating, effectively eliminating this problem.  No one was entirely sure why, but these birds were prized among duelists for their resiliency.  Breeding never seemed successful, though many tries were made to reproduce these fantastical creatures.  No offspring ever came of any attempt.  The only way to get one was to go into the zone and catch it.
	The zone itself was fairly large, nestled near Mauville City.  The most notable feature of the area was an abandoned laboratory.  The records on its purpose had been lost to time, but it had a high concentration of the sought-after Pokémon within its walls.  One could find them wandering the countryside, but such encounters were very uncommon.  A trainer’s best bet was to dive into the lab and start rummaging around like some kind of burglar.  There were lots of passages to explore and a majority of the lab was underground.  The halls had a winding, disorienting quality to them, so it was easy to get turned around.  Coming back with a few new, fancy Pokémon, however, made it well worth it.
	Two such trainers were exploring the lab one sunny autumn day.  Their names?  Those were not too important, but they were a pair of guys named Andrew and Aaron.  Their names were fairly similar, both starting with the letter ‘A’, but they were brothers so that made some semblance of sense.  They were dressed very similarly.  Both of them wore a typical trainer’s jacket, looking more like a fishing vest than anything else.  Andrew’s was teal and Aaron’s yellow.  The colors were brighter than they should have been.  They wore blue jeans, inexpensive sneakers, and both of them had a backpack containing all the supplies any trainer would need to get by.  They were blondes with blue eyes.  Andrew was two years older, but they looked about the same age, mid to late teens.  Neither of them wore a hat or gloves.  The weather was warm enough that they were not required.  They were searching for Pokémon who were resistant to electricity in order to stand a chance against Mauville City’s gym leader.  Like most gym leaders, he insisted on having Pokémon of only one type, electric type in his case.  Most of their higher level Pokémon were either water type or just plain normal type.  They needed and edge.  Hopefully, they would find it.
	Most of the day had been spent walking there.  They had been exploring the lab in a methodical way, starting at the ground floor and working their way down.  They were on the third sub-basement.  It was another floor of winding hallways.  Their search had already proven fruitful.  Andrew had managed to collect a rubber Taillow while Aaron had captured a rubber Starly.  They were still looking, but getting a little sick of this lab.  The floor had not been cleaned in some time.  The tiles had likely been black and white at one point.  At that moment in time, the white tiles were nearly dark gray with dust and accumulated grime.  Globs of liquid rubber and what appeared to be latex feathers lay in patches.  The walls were all painted a strangely clinical, pale green.  Fluorescent lights had washed the colors out slightly, so it might have been darker at some point.  The doors were labeled with small signs next to them.  The doorways, anyway.  The brothers had yet to encounter a door that had not been broken down.  Words had worn off of all of the plaques.  Determining what the rooms once had as their purpose was impossible, not that it mattered to the brothers at all.
	“See anything else yet?”  Andrew called out to his brother as he rounded a corner into yet another similar looking hallway.  All the rooms and halls looked the same.  It was disorienting.  “Gotta be some rares down here.”  They were so deep underground they had to be close to the nest of something good.  All the good Pokémon tended to be on the deepest levels of any cave, building, or dungeon.  He glanced over his shoulder to call after Aaron.  He was lagging behind, probably looking for something unrelated to Pokémon catching.  They were both pretty easy to distract, but they were generally good at keeping each other on task.  He did not get an answer, so he called out again.  “Hey, come on already!”
	“I’m coming, thought I saw something!”  Aaron’s response was belated, but it was better late than never.  He swung around the corner, nearly bumping into Andrew as he did.  Those awkward years were rough.
	“What’d you think you saw?”  Andrew asked as he stepped forward, just in case his brother decided to topple into him.
	“Uh, something.  I didn’t look very long before someone started yelling for me.”  Now he was just being petulant.  Andrew felt a slight twinge of regret that was easily masked by how annoyed he was at his brother.
	“Well, I….”  Maybe it was something important.  Maybe it was something rare.  The brothers got along pretty well, so he was not one to just dismiss everything Aaron said out of hand.  “We should probably go check it out.”
	“Yeah, cool.  It’s this way.”  Aaron arched up an arm to gesture wildly in the direction that he came from.  Andrew could see more hallway wandering in their future, but not aimless wandering.  They rounded a few more corners, winding through the halls until they came to a large, open room.
	The room housed something the brothers had never seen before.  It was a large machine of some sort.  It took up nearly half of the room.  At one end of the machine was a top loading hopper made of stainless steel.  The funnel-like opening was in a square shape, about eight feet long and eight feet wide.  It led into a large, boxy chamber which linked it to another component of the machine.  This one had a computer screen featured prominently in front of it with a small, fold out keyboard underneath.  The screen appeared to be off at the moment.  There were a number of closed ports arrayed around the screen, but the pair could not determine their purpose.  The distal end of the machine had what appeared to be a large outlet with part of a conveyor belt sticking out of it.  It was big, big enough that a rhyhorn could have walked through it.  The entirety of the machine was about thirty feet long from end to end.  There were cables linking it to the back wall, likely leading to some kind of power source.  Despite the broken down surroundings, this machine looked well maintained.  Its surface was free of scuffs and imperfections.  It was extremely out of place, considering everything else down there looked disused.  The brothers stared at it for several moments.  Andrew reached up and scratched at his crown of blonde locks.  “What the heck is it?”  He managed to say after studying it.  He could not fathom its purpose.  The thing was just a big, perplexing piece of technology.
	“Dunno.”  His brother answered despite it being a bit of a non-answer.  Aaron walked up to the machine.  Many things in this world could be figured out by messing with them.  Some people learned the most about unknown bits of technology or any number of other things by fiddling with them.  Aaron was one of those people.  “I think I’m going to play with it a bit.”
	“Hey, hey!  Don’t touch that thing.  You don’t know what it even does!”  Andrew stepped forward and grabbed at Aaron’s jacket.  A quick yank brought him away from the mystery device.  “Besides, you’ll probably break it.”  This thing could be worth money.  There was nothing to be gained by tampering with it.  The thought that other people might have discovered this machine before, or that it might be owned, did not occur to Andrew.
	“I’m not gonna break it.  Look at this thing!”  Aaron tried to pull out of his brother’s grip and gesticulated at the machine.  “It’s made of, like, solid steel or something!  Besides, it’s not even on right now.”
	“Is it humming?”  Andrew leaned forward.  He could have sworn it was making noise.  It was probably off, but he was sure he heard the buzzing away of internal components.  “I think it’s humming.  It’s definitely on.”  As if on cue, the machine started to emit a louder, mechanical whirring.   The computer screen flicked on.  It had detected their presence.  On the monitor, the image of a doduo was displayed.
	“Ok, I think it’s on now.”  Aaron pointed out the obvious as he took a step backwards.   There did not seem to be any reason to be nervous.  The machine was motionless.  It just happened to have turned itself on.  It continued to make a variety of whirring and clicking noises.
	“What’s it even doing?”  Andrew took a step closer, as he was feeling pretty curious.  A few of the apertures on the front of the machine opened up with metallic clicks.  Andrew took a step back, but there was no possible way he could be fast enough to avoid what came next.  A quartet of mechanical arms shot from the machine, two for each brother.  The arms were made of a series of long, interconnecting metal rings with strong cables underneath.  Each was tipped with a rubber coated, four-pronged grasping device.  “What the arms?!”  Andrew cried out as one of the arms grabbed him around the leg and lifted him into the air.
	“Oh shit!”  Aaron darted towards his brother in an attempt to free him from the machine’s mechanical grip.  He was thwarted as another arm grabbed a leg and pulled him off of his feet.  No help was available to anyone.  The brothers thrashed in a futile attempt to get free.  “Let us go!”  
	“Yeah, put me down now, dammit!”  Andrew balled up his fists and smacked at the rubbery claw that firmly held his leg.  Their complaints fell on deaf lack-of-ears.   The machine could hear them, but their protests did not register.  It had its purpose and would fulfill it endlessly.  So, it did the only thing it was programmed to do.  It gave the boys a few shakes to liberate their property from them.  Their backpacks and pokéballs hit the floor.   “Hey, my stuff!”  Was all Andrew had time to yell before the two boys were unceremoniously tossed into the top of the machine’s hopper.
	They had not gotten a good look inside of the hopper before being trapped.  As they were being tossed inside, they got a brief glimpse of what appeared to be a mass of black liquid.  They found out it was not as thin as water, but thick and gel-like.  It was not so thick that they did not start to immediately sink into it once tossed in.  The gunk rapidly enveloped their bodies, the guys did not even have time to scream.  The liquid blackness covered every inch of their bodies, including their faces.  It seemed to know enough to leave holes for their noses.  Every complicated living thing tended to need oxygen.  Andrew and Aaron struggled as the goo held them fast.  It ate away their clothes, dissolving every scrap of fabric that clung to their bodies.  The gel could cling to them even more effectively than any shirt or pants.  The boys tried to look each other, to find each other, but they could not.  Something moved through the gel towards them.  A pair of mechanical hands pushed them together and then shoved them towards the next section of the machine.  They were pushed free of the first tank, moving to an open compartment.  Their bodies, however, were still covered in a thick, blobby layer of liquid rubber.  They were joined at the back, a layer of sticky rubber making their forms cling together.  Blindly, they tried to thrash in opposite directions.  They were held pretty firmly, so the effort was fruitless.  A pair of mechanical hands loomed over them.  These were more articulate than the ones that threw them in the tank in the first place.  They looked almost like human hands in terms of their shape.  The color was immaterial as it was dark inside of the machine.  It had a template in mind for the two inside.  This was apparent through the image of a doduo that appeared on its view screen.  If the machine was capable of being excited, it would have been at that moment as it had not had a chance to make a rubberized doduo yet.  The opportunity simply had not presented itself.  With two blank slates coming at once it finally had a chance to do so.  The hands set to work molding the rubber mess inside.  A doduo had only two legs, not four, so it set to work sticking the legs of the two brothers together, molding and adjusting them to resemble a pair of doduo legs.  Where the bird’s legs were normally a bit thin and spindly, these ones were quite a bit thicker, but still would still work just as well.  The hands molded the rubber around the brothers’ arms to bind them to their sides.  Doduos had no use for things like arms, that is what they had two legs and two heads for.  The hands added some brownish colored gel to mold the body out into a sphere shape and to surround the brothers’ heads.  Beaks were affixed to fit over their mouths and noses.  They had shaped, gel inserts to cover the teeth and tongue, making sure everything looked as it should and providing a means for the two to gain nutrients and breathe properly.  The hands parted the gel over their eyes, letting them see once again.  They would have been able to see, anyway, if not for the fact that the chamber they were in was pitch black.  What they could do again was talk.  They both started yelling for help.  The words were a random mixture of pleas for help and demands to be let out.  The machine ignored all of that and pushed them into the next chamber, this one being well lit.  A flap had been left open on the backs of each of their heads.  One had to wonder what the purpose of such a thing was.  One did not have to wonder for very long.  An altogether new pair of mechanical hands occupied this chamber.  Both hands held a single computational device, a tiny HM with all the relevant behavioral information required to be a doduo.  The two brothers turned their heads, looking at each other.  Their eyes widened in shock.  Both saw a bird’s head staring back.  Speaking was still impossible.  The beaks were not made for it.  They let out a string of odd syllables, surprise and confusion reigning.  They tried to pull their bodies apart.  The round ball of brown rubber held them together.  It had hardened, producing a shiny, durable surface.  Their arms were held too fast to their sides to provide leverage.  While they were distracted, the mechanical hands slipped the tiny HMs into the backs of their masks and sealed the flaps closed.  Immediately, a thin series of wires extended from it, probing into their heads.  A calming sensation washed over them.  Their eyes half closed.  Their former personalities were not erased per say.  However, new sets of ‘programming’ were layered over them.  They would remember nothing of being Pokémon trainers, a simple doduo of two minds with a shared body all that was left in its place.  
The new doduo’s heads swiveled around, taking in their surroundings.  They were confused a being hemmed in and started to squawk to be let out.  The machine was happy to oblige.  As far as they were concerned, its obligation was fulfilled.  The outer panel opened up on the side of the machine.  Standing up on their newly molded legs, they took a few cautious steps out of the chamber.  The two heads looked around, squawked happily, and took off running.  They were eager to go for a good, long run, stretch the old legs a bit.  Then, perhaps, a dinner of seeds.  After they had gone, the machine scooped up the former trainers’ pokéballs.  It opened each of them in turn, releasing them back into the wild, before going dormant once again.  It was the same cycle every time.  The machine would not complain about it at all.

It was three am and Dan’s phone was ringing off the hook.  As with most sensible people, he was sleeping at three am.  He reached a small, brown furred paw out from under the pile of blankets he was nestled under to grope for his cell phone.  Unable to find it by feel alone, he peeked his head out from under the covers.  Dan, for all intents and purposes, looked like a typical raichu.  His fur was a mix of yellows, oranges, and browns.  He had the requisite yellow cheeks and floppy, double pointed ears.  He had the long tail with the lightning bolt shaped tip.  The only thing particularly special about Dan was that he had a level of cognitive ability that was far and away higher than that of the average raichu.  Indeed, he was smarter than a good portion of humans.  Dan was also something even more special.  Dan was a retriever.
Retrievers were a necessity across all the worlds that sentient beings inhabited.  Across all realities, there were horrible beings who treated people like they were toys.  Many are human, many are something else entirely, and some are not even, technically, alive.  There are those too who…let’s say over indulge in their fantasy lives.  What might seem like a fun and exciting fetish scenario is significantly less so when they find that there is no way out of the life they have trapped themselves into.  Retrievers took a variety of forms and had a variety of attitudes.  Some were small, some were cute, some were diplomatic.  There were some that were nearly invincible, hulking murder machines.  Most did not know what they were, they simply saw it as their lot to save people from what could be deemed as a life of horror, misery, and death.
Therefore, when Dan answered his phone at three am, he knew exactly what the nature of the call was.  “Who and what is it this time?”  He spoke gruffly into the receiver.  It was always comical to hear the raichu’s gravelly voice coming from such an adorable package, particularly when his speech was thick with sleep.
“No hello?”  The voice replied in a rather pleasant, feminine tone.  Dan did not quite know the identity of the other party on the phone.  They always spoke with a different voice.  They may not always have been the same person, but Dan had a feeling that it was.  The mannerisms were always the same.  “Why Dan, that’s no kind of greeting at all.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, do you not know what time it is?  I’m buying you a watch if we ever meet face to face.”  The raichu sat up in bed.  He held his phone in his right paw.  With his left, he rubbed at his eyes to clear some of the sleep crust from them.
“I usually use my phone to check the time, but thank you anyway.  I love gifts, yes I do.”  The voice replied in syrupy sweet tones.  There was a lengthy pause as the entity on the phone waited for Dan to say something.
“……You called me.  What do you want?”  Dan finally spoke when it was clear that the other party was feeling particularly cryptic.
“Oh, yes, that!  However could I forget?”  A musical chuckle emanated from the other end of the conversation.  “I have a job for you, something that will bring you to Mauville City.”
“Ungh.  Do I have to talk to Wattson?”  Dan asked, recalling the local gym leader with the exact opposite of fondness.
“Oh, no, you won’t even have to go to town if you don’t want to.  You could always grab a bite to eat there if you want, whatever it is raichus eat.”
“Food.  We eat food.”  Dan replied with a considerable thinning of his patience.  “I would like it if you’d tell me what I’m going up against.”
“I was getting to that.  Why so impatient?”  There was a slightly ‘hurt’ edge to the voice, though this was likely just a put on.
“Fine, sorry.”  Dan would get nowhere if he did not start being polite.  The voice would keep talking in circles until he played by its rules.
“I’m not sure you’re being entirely sincere, but that’s ok.”  Another giggle from the voice.  Dan was getting sick of them.  “There is a machine in an old, abandoned lab outside of Mauville City.”
“A machine?  What kind of machine?”  Dan was interested.  Active machines in abandoned labs rarely resulted in something good happening.
“I was getting to that, so very impatient!  Please hold all questions for the end.”  The voice cleared his….her….its, whatever’s throat.  “I think you might have made me lose my place.”  Dan’s gut did an agitated flip, but only one as the voice continued.  “Oh yes, the machine.  Well, that lab was dedicated to researching how to make flying types that didn’t get all fainted quite so easily from lightning attacks.”
“Heh, yeah, those birds do hate lightning.”  Dan said with a bit of smug satisfaction.
“And how, hehe!  But, anyways, they came upon the most natural solution possible.  Simple, really.  Oh how very, very simple.  Can you believe how simple it is?”
“….What?”  Dan stated to tap one of his rabbit-like feet on his bed.  He wished the voice would hurry up.
“Why, they coated the birds in rubber!”
“That’s….stupid.”  Dan put his left paw over his face.  Nothing about rubber birds made sense.
“Oh, it worked.  The problem is, they lost their funding for some reason.  So, the lab was abandoned.  Still gets power, though.”
“So, the machine’s still on.  So what?”
“Well, lately it may be…capturing Pokémon trainers and kinda…sorta…been coating and sculpting them into rubber birds.”
“What?  Why the heck would it do that?”  Dan was feeling incredulous.  How could it go from coating bird Pokémon in rubber to turning people into rubber birds?
“I dunno!”  The voice giggled some more.  “Well, I kinda know!  It was designed to make any Pokémon into fun, rubberized birds.”
“I’m starting to see why they lost their funding.”  Dan grumbled, more to himself than to the voice.  It promptly ignored him and continued.
“Guess the programming’s got all corrupted and stuff.  So!”  The voice was finally going to give Dan the proper mission.  “We want you to go in there, smash up the machine, and free any and every Pokémon trainer that’s got the rubber bird treatment, yeah?”
“Yeah.  Ok.  Uh, how’m I supposed to get the rubber off of them anyway?”  Dan did not particularly like the idea of going up against something that his lightning would bounce off of like, well, rubber.
“That’s the best part!  We’ve sent you a fun times squirt gun full of some stuff that dissolves rubber!  And we’re paying you!”  Yet another giggle.  “We’re just the best, aren’t we?”
“Hm, how’ll you know I’ve freed all the trainers?”  Dan asked, already knowing what the voice would say.
“Oh, silly Dan, don’t we always know?”  They always did.
“Well, fine.  When can I expect that water gun?”  He knew the answer to this one too, but seemed to like asking anyway.
“Oh, it’s already outside your door.  Quick smart, now.  Sooner you get this done, the fewer rubber birds there’ll be, right?”
“Fair point.  Guess I’d better get started.”  Dan started to slide out of bed.  He would contemplate a quick breakfast.
“Sounds good!  Bai bai!”  The voice said what it had to and Dan heard the beeps indicating the call had ended.  Dan put his phone down and sighed.  This could not have waited for morning?  Well, he may as well not keep his benefactors waiting.  He would leave as early as possible….after he’d had some coffee and breakfast doughnuts.

Dan arrived at the abandoned lab after what seemed like a short trip.  He caught a flight from a friendly pidgeot, who dropped him off in exchange for a bag of roasted sunflower seeds.  Those birds did so love their seeds.  Dan travelled light.  He just brought with him a backpack full of supplies and a briefcase containing the water gun given to him by his benefactors.  The raichu had taken a peek before he left.  The water gun itself was not a super expensive model, but still pretty nice.  It was the size of a small carbine with a two liter tank situated at the top.  The coloring motif was a white barrel with a yellow body, green handle, and green tank.  The tip of the barrel was, of course, a child friendly blaze orange.  It was ugly as could be, but did contain a noxious smelling, clear liquid that would supposedly dissolve the rubber bird skins on contact.  How did Dan smell the liquid if it was in the tank?  He may have already tried the gun out already before he came to the lab.  This was under the guise of making sure it worked and was in no way wasting the liquid.  Besides, he was sure that he could get free refills for the thing.  His clothing was as simple as it ever was.  He wore a red tie around his neck and a pair of cuffs with cufflinks on his wrists.  They were not really attached to anything, but they did not seem to get dislodged easily either.
Upon first entering the building, Dan had the same reaction as most.  This place was a dump.  Dan was not there to see the sights.  There was a machine to find and probably smash.  This job could not get done quickly enough.  So, Dan hurried towards where he had been told the machine was.  
On the way downstairs, he encountered his first rubberized bird.  It was, well, a sight.  It was a doduo that looked shorter and thicker than it should have been.  True to Dan’s expectations, it appeared to be either made out of rubber or coated in a thick sheen of it.  It was wandering around the top floor aimlessly.  It seemed to think of this building as its nest.  It had seen Dan, but kept its distance.  Flying type Pokémon seemed to be hardwired to avoid lightning types.  Perhaps not doing away with that was an oversight on the part of the machine, considering the purpose of the birds?  Maybe the machine just expected those tendencies to go away.  Both of its heads were focused on the raichu. He spoke to it plainly.  “Ok, bird.  I have a squirt gun with your name on it here.  Just let me pump it up.”  He slid the slide on the front end of the gun back and forth a few times to build up air.  The bird circled to the side a bit, still watching Dan but eager to get away from him.  It was plotting its escape when Dan aimed the water gun and pulled the trigger.  A stream of liquid shot forth from the gun.  The doduo was fast, but not fast enough to escape getting a good dousing.  It let out an ear splitting shriek as the mysterious fluid hit it.  Dan was grinning.  He normally did not use a gun, but this seemed to be working out pretty well for him.  The doduo already looked like it was melting.  Wait, crap, it was melting!  Dan’s smug grin turned into a frown very quickly.  He really, really hoped he had not just killed the damn thing.  It fell on the ground, legs thrashing in the air as the rubber started to liquefy and drip off.  Dan was thankful when he saw a pair of human legs take the place of both of the doduo’s legs.  How reassuring it was that Dan had not killed it…him…her?  Whatever it was.  Dan was not paying enough attention to be able to sex weird, rubber birds.  More rubber liquefied and slid away from the bird body, a couple of odd looking electronic devices falling out of their heads to shatter on the floor.  A couple of people were stuck inside, judging by the number of legs.  As the liquid rubber slid away, Dan could make out the shape of two young boys.  They were quite unconscious, but being naked in a strange place would be jarring when they woke up.  Dan did not see that as his problem.  They were free from the rubber suit they had been trapped in, that should be good enough.  Dan felt a bit like he was wasting his time, so he simply jumped over the prone bodies of the former trainers and kept going down the hall.  He passed a few more rubber birds on his trip, giving them a good spray of solvent as he passed.  He did not even slow down to make sure they were ok.  The sooner he was done with this little mission, the sooner he could do something else.
The raichu eventually found his way to the basement.  He was face to….screen with the computer that started all of this nonsense.  That was not technically correct.  Technically, it was the scientists and engineers who built this thing that started all of this nonsense, but that was just splitting hairs.  It was the only thing that Dan had seen in this place that looked maintained.  It also matched the description that he was given by his benefactors in a little write up included with his fancy water gun.  The water gun probably would not help with the machine, but Dan did have electrical powers for that.  Most machines did not like bolts of lightning overmuch.  He took a step towards it.  “Huh, looks like the thing’s off.”  Dan stated just to break the silence.  The computer’s monitor looked like it was off.  “Guess I should just break it and go home.  Unless….”  Dan wondered if he could, perhaps, get the computer to issue a command to revert all the rubber birds that had been made back to their original forms?  If he was careful, he could probably boot the computer up and see what he could find.  Dan took a few steps forward.  Sensing his proximity, however, the machine came to life.  
The monitor lit up, bathing the raichu in a greenish glow.  It was about as excited as anything that was not entirely sentient could be.  It had never turned an electric type Pokémon into a rubber bird, now was its chance!  The hatches on the front of the machine opened up and shot out towards Dan.  He was not as slow as a typical trainer, not by a long shot.  Raichus had a lot of speed due to their rabbit-like legs and light frames.  He leapt forward, rolling out of the way of the grasping arms.  “Clambering computers!”  He cursed out as the hands missed him by a few hairs.  In his roll, Dan had dropped the water gun.  It would have been useless against this enemy, so he did not miss it.  He came up on his feet as the arms came at him again.  As he came up, he let out a massive jolt of thunder from the electricity stored in his cheeks.  Twin bolts ripped through the air, striking both of the mechanical arms.  The arms jerked, but only for a moment.  They had a rubbery sort of coating on them, so it was not very effective.  Dan had to leap back to avoid another grasping at from the gropey hands.  “I really don’t like you and you don’t like me, but now I’m getting mad!”  Dan stated towards the machine, hoping to bother it.  The machine was indifferent towards his verbal barbs.  The machine took another swipe at him with its arms.  He ducked them handily.  “Got a secret power for you.  Let’s see how you like this!”  Dan reached deep within himself, activating his hidden power.  Every good, single type Pokémon should have a contingency plan.  Dan’s took the form of a beam of ice which erupted from each of his paws.  The rubber did little to protect the arms from this.  They froze, then shattered.  Machine oil leaked from the severed stumps.  The computer tried to formulate a new plan of action, but Dan was done.  He was annoyed with this ridiculousness and threw the biggest bolt of thunder he could muster at the computer.  The explosion was very pretty, sparks and bits of transistors raining down all around him.  It was like that scene in that movie Dan could not remember the name of at the moment.  He folded his arms over his chest as he just stood back and watched the machine explode, burn, and crumble in on itself.  
It took him a few moments to remember that he still had a lot of rubber birds to revert.  His ears slumped downwards.  “Oh….good.”  He sighed some.  He walked up to the machine and sifted his paws through the broken parts.  Nothing looked remotely salvageable.  He reached into a non-existent pocket to take out his cell phone.  He dialed a familiar number and spoke into the receiver.  “Um….yeah.  I broke it too fast.  Don’t suppose you have some leads on where all the birds got to?”  Dan had the feeling it was going to be a long day turning into a long week.  He hoped his special water gun’s refills would be easy to get.