"What do you think is the nature of truth?" Keldeo asked, as the group walked down the road.
"Wow, uh, that's actually kind of a hard question," Ash admitted. "It sounds more like the sort of thing Zekrom might know?"
"But it isn't," Zekrom said, emerging with a flash. "Truth isn't my department. Ideals is. And they're sort of… not the same? That's the point."
"They're not necessarily different, either," Ash frowned. "Uh… so if someone's happy with how they are, that's true, and it's also an ideal situation for them. Right?"
Keldeo considered that, then nodded. "I guess that's, well… true? Talking about this is hard, it feels like too big a concept."
"Truth," Arc defined. "The quality, or state, of being true."
They went silent to think about that.
"A correct definition, but actually also completely useless," Zekrom summarized. "Not ideal."
He brightened. "See? That definition of truth is true, but it's useless. So it's not ideal."
"But to be fair there should also be times when what's true is more helpful than what's ideal, right?" Ash said, which got a piqued look from his Deep Black Pokémon. "Or where what's ideal can distract you from what's actually a better option."
"Harumph," Zekrom grumbled ostentatiously.
They were about to reach a bridge, and suddenly Ash got a mental picture of himself falling in the water.
"What was that?" Iris asked. "Did anyone else see that?"
"If you mean you suddenly had a vivid mental image of Ash falling through the bridge, then yes," Keldeo said, shakily. "What just happened?"
"Uh… maybe we should check," Ash suggested. "Mew, do you have any of that potion?"
"Yep!" Mew agreed. "Or, more correctly, Marshadow has some. Marshadow?"
Marshadow's head popped out of Ash's shadow. "Which one did you want?"
"The human to Pokémon one, the normal mix," Mew requested. "The one without Dialga shavings."
Marshadow rummaged around for a bit, pulled out a thermos flask, and passed it up to Mew.
"Wait, hold on, hold on," Iris said. "You've had a supply of that stuff around the whole time? Now I want to try some and see what Pokémon I end up as!"
"What about you?" Pansage said, looking up at his trainer.
"Hmm, now…" Cilan considered. "I suppose it could give me a greater insight into my own flavour! I'd be delighted to try some!"
"Huh, I guess that bridge is about to collapse," Ashbsol decided, lowering a paw again after briefly taking a step towards it. "So, thanks, whoever sent that mysterious message!"
He turned to watch his friends, who were just getting their own doses of potion measured out.
"I hope I'm a dragon," Iris said, and drank it down.
There was a puff of smoke, and suddenly she was a Zoroark.
"Well, that makes sense of the hair," Pikachu said, trying not to giggle too obviously.
"This is great!" Iris declared, and turned into a Salamence. "I'm a dragon-type!"
"But you're not," Keldeo protested.
"Of course I am!" Iris replied. "Look! Hey, how natural is it to fly when you've taken on a form that flies?"
"That's a violation, you're not a Dragon-type!"
"I can't hear you over the sound of me being a dragon!" Iris shouted back.
"Let her have her fun," Cilan suggested.
Keldeo glanced over, then blinked.
"Kecleon?" he asked. "Why a Kecleon?"
"I think it's because a good chef can work with whatever is available," Cilan said. "Of course, I assume Chili and Cress would get the same result, which would make me the Third Kecleon Brother!"
"Why third and not first?" Pansage asked.
Cilan shrugged.
At that point, either a UFO nearly collided with Iris or Iris nearly collided with a UFO depending on your opinion of which of them had less control over what was going on.
"Hey, Ibid!" Ash said, as the UFO came down to a barely-controlled landing and the scientist on top fell off, followed a moment later by Iris crashing and reverting to a Zoroark for less than a second. "Can you get Clefairy for me? I think UFOs are her department."
They didn't actually need Clefairy's help, per se, because the scientist who'd been flying the UFO – a man by the name of Professor Icarus – explained that he was building it to take an Elgyem back into space, at which point the Elgyem in question explained via Lokoko that they were quite happy staying with Professor Icarus and didn't want to go to space in the first place.
Elgyem also turned out to be the source of the premonition, which led Lokoko to carefully walk the Psychic-type through the rudiments of using words to explain things rather than projecting unfiltered images into the head of the person you were trying to contact.
"Still, it's good instincts to want to warn people," Ash said. "You just have to be careful or you end up with that silly reputation Absols have."
"I suppose you'd know," Professor Icarus mused. "Well, thank you for averting disaster. You've done a good job today!"
"Question," Zygarde said. "Ash, did you forget you are currently an Absol?"
"That would explain why he said I'd know," Ash admitted.
"I'm just glad to have a bit of an explanation for why Ash is so… Ash," Keldeo said. "It makes sense that someone who'd been turned into a Pokémon would have a deep understanding of Pokémon."
"Ehh, actually he was already like that years before he tried the potion," Mew replied. "I blame myself, which is to say I take credit, but Ash is Ash and it's kind of amazing."
Iris crashed, which was another way of saying she landed.
"Okay, I need expert help," she said, reforming into the shape of a Flygon this time. "Emolga, can you give me any advice on how to crash less?"
Ash technically ran into Trip again, a few days later, though Trip said that unfortunately he'd remembered something he had to be doing in Virbank and left in a great hurry.
"Huh," Ash said, blinking. "I wonder what that was about… you'd think he'd want to try out Cilan and Dragonite's cooking because it smells great! Or I could have given him a lift, if it was that important."
"I suspect Trip would rather not do either of those things," Pikachu shrugged. "It's up to him, after all."
"True," Ash admitted. "How are you guys doing?"
"I've made a great discovery!" Cilan said. "Ash, do you know what an induction hob is?"
Ash frowned, thinking about that.
"It's a bit of cooking equipment that proves things?" he guessed.
Cilan laughed. "It could be," he admitted. "But the meaning we're normally used to is that an induction hob is a way of heating up metal pots and pans very quickly, without needing to use a flame or a ring. It just heats the pot directly."
"So, how does it do that?" Pikachu asked.
"Electricity!" Cilan explained. "Though I'm not quite sure how, because Electric isn't super effective against Steel… it might have something to do with magnets. Anyway, the point is, I found one!"
"You found one?" Iris asked, looking up from where she was working on Volt Switch with Emolga and her other Pokémon. "How did you manage that?"
"He's a Stunfisk!" Cilan explained. "Dragonite stepped on him, which annoyed him a bit, but then I explained the possibilities and he's very interested. We're making creamy potato soup on him… if he's interested, I could bring him along!"
"I assume the hob gets first taste," Stunfisk said.
"I-" Keldeo began, then stopped. "Okay, I was about to say this is the oddest way a Pokémon has joined the group, but there is no way that's true based on what I've seen of Ash so far. What's your oddest Pokémon catch, Ash?"
"Well, there is how I got Croagunk, that was a bit weird," Ash said. "He dodged, and I had him. Then there was Aten, I guess? That's more about how he came to exist, though… but if you're counting that there's the Spiritmob too… oh, does how my friend May got Manaphy count?"
"Being the Hero of Ideals sounds very confusing," Keldeo decided.
"Actually, most of them aren't anything like this fun," Zekrom said, adjusting the towel he had over his eyes as he sunbathed. "Ash is the best Hero of Ideals ever, and I don't care that that's a True statement."
"It seems like a really long way to Nimbasa, compared to going to other towns," Ash said. "Is that what's actually going on, or did I miss something?"
"We are not using the shortest route," Arc informed him. "That is, we are not using the shortest route even discounting my normal recommendation for the shortest route, which is to teleport. We have bypassed the desert."
Ash considered, then nodded. "That makes sense!" he said. "I'm on a Pokémon Journey, and while there are cool Pokémon in a desert it's not really great for a lot of Pokémon, so it's best to go through a desert only over short bits. And it'd mean travelling at night, too."
"You didn't notice?" Cilan asked. "I suppose you're not from Unova so it wouldn't be obvious to you."
"If we were in Kanto it wouldn't help!" Ash admitted, readily. "My friends and I got really lost in Kanto, even having Zapdos around to help scout out where we were going didn't help some of the time."
"Aha!" someone called.
A young woman stepped out into the road in front of them and pointed at Iris. "You're a Dragon Master, aren't you?"
Iris opened her mouth, paused, and closed it again. "...I actually don't know what to say to that."
"Why not?" the woman demanded. "I'm a Dragon Buster, so if you're afraid of-"
"No, it's nothing to do with that," Iris replied, hotly. "Don't be such a child! What I mean is, I considered myself a Dragon Master right up until I remembered who I'm standing next to!"
She pointed at Ash. "How many Dragon-type Pokémon do you have?"
"Uhh…" Ash began, and started counting under his breath. "We haven't found a Dragon Plate so Arc doesn't count… does Zygarde count?"
"For these purposes, yes," Iris said. "It helps my case!"
"Then, twenty-eight Dratini line Pokémon, plus Zygarde, Latias, Latios, Rayquaza, Gible and Zekrom," Ash summarized. "Thirty-four. Thirty-five if you count Charizard's Mega form."
"Exactly!" Iris said. "I've got one, and Axew is great but…"
She waved her hands at Ash helplessly. "I'm pretty sure Ash is a Dragon Master by any reasonable definition, even though he doesn't technically specialize in them. I'm just not sure if I am."
"Though I have Zacian as well, and she's the Anti-Dragon Pokémon," Ash volunteered. "Or that's what she says!"
The woman's gaze had become slightly fixed, but then she shook her head. "Okay, uh… I literally do not know how to react to that."
"Why do you want to know if Iris is a Dragon Master?" Cilan asked. "That might help us pick from the menu!"
"Right!" the woman said. "My name's Georgia, and after losing a battle to someone from the Village of Dragons I swore to defeat any Dragon Master I came across!"
"Who did you lose to?" Iris asked, interested. "If it's me, then sorry for not remembering you."
"It was some old guy," Georgia said vaguely. "Drayden, I think?"
"The Gym Leader?" Cilan replied. "I'd sort of expect him to beat most challengers in a non-gym battle."
"This was all very simple until you started talking," Georgia complained.
AN:
Really, it just raises questions about what makes someone a Dragon Master as opposed to a Person With A Pile Of Dragons Who Does Not Master Them.