"Please tell me I'm not battling that Pikachu," Shauntal requested. "I know that he looked pretty well exhausted when his battle was over, but… I'm afraid to find out he can punch ghosts, or something."

"Well, Pikachu does need a rest, so I'm not using him," Ash replied, getting out a Moon Ball. "Though I'm pretty sure he can do that, depending on the ghost and the move he uses. Anyway, I've picked my first Pokémon!"

"In that case, we should begin," Shauntal said, and held up an Ultra Ball.

Both Pokémon came out at the same moment, and Cresselia raised an eyebrow.

"Interesting," she said, inspecting the Cofagrigus she was going to be battling. "As a matter of personal curiosity, do you happen to remember your human life?"

"Some of it," Cofagrigus replied. "Not a lot, though."

"Probably not worth discussing, then," Cresselia decided.

"Will-o-Wisp!" Shauntal ordered.

"Safeguard," Cresselia replied, white mist flowing over her body and sending the Will-o-Wisp flames scattering off into the distance.

"Shadow Ball, then," Shauntal added, and her Cofagrigus began using four shadowy arms to throw orbs of ghostly essence at Cresselia.

"Recover," Cresselia said, healing herself from the barrage. "Light Screen. Lunar Blessing. Recover."

"Cresselia!" Ash called. "Use Advanced Orbital Engineering!"

"Use what?" Shauntal asked, looking up. "Cresselia are moon Pokémon, right? Is the moon coming this way?"

She shaded her eyes, trying to spot if the moon was visible overhead.

"I don't know the move What," Cofagrigus complained, but kept throwing Shadow Balls anyway.

"Actually, I guess that's something that would be possible," Ash frowned, already thinking. "So, you'd need a lot of power and it'd be more likely to be something Lunala could do, maybe? Or Servine, I guess, but even then you'd need way more power to do it quickly and the moon would kind of explode into bits unless you were holding it together somehow…"

"You mean you're not bringing the moon down to hit us?" Shauntal checked, just wanting to confirm, then blinked. "...are you working out how to bring the moon down to hit us?"

"Well, it'd be hard!" Ash said. "But I don't think it's something we'd want to do, even if we could, because there's way too many people living on both the moon and the earth and so it'd be impolite even if it didn't cause a massive catastrophe."

"So what is Advanced Orbital Engineering, then?" Shauntal said. "Does it involve an asteroid?"

"It involves this," Cresselia said, drawing Shauntal's attention, and waved the thick university textbook she was holding. "It might have some relevance to lunar powers, or something, and what Servine's done with them has been very inspirational."

"You know, sometimes I wonder about how some of your Pokémon are so used to being understood that they've rarely if ever had to interact with someone who doesn't," Shauntal admitted. "It's a book?"

"Yeah, Cresselia's matches usually go on for a very long time!" Ash agreed. "She's improving her mind!"

"Hmm," Shauntal said. "Cofagrigus, Poltergeist!"

"Hmm," Entei said, considering. "I think I'll have one of the peanut biscuits."

"Do you ever choose anything else?" Dragonite asked, but served him one anyway.

"Oh, hold on, look," Gible pointed. "I think we might not have enough time for the whole picnic during Cresselia's battle!"

They looked up, seeing that Cresselia was being beaten about the head by her textbook.

"Is that something her opponent's doing, or something subconscious by Cresselia?" Dragonite asked.

Entei considered that.

"My answer is as follows," he said. "I'd also like a cheeseburger."

Later in the same battle, Ash's Grovyle threw some Bullet Seed knives out towards his opponent.

"Fire Blast," Shauntal ordered, and Chandelure incinerated the kunai with a flash of flame. The flame went straight on to hit Grovyle himself, but it turned out he'd just used Substitute and so what actually got hit was a bundle of sticks.

Shauntal rubbed her temples. "So, was the attack he did before a fake as well?" she asked, as Grovyle sprang out of hiding in what was left of the grass.

"Huh?" Ash asked, confused. "No, why? He didn't use Substitute until the attack hit, so that's when it turned out he wasn't there."

"I mean-" Shauntal began, stopped and restarted. "Is part of your actual fighting style confusing your opponents so much they can't tell what's going on?"

"I think part of his fighting style is confusing reality so much it can't tell what's going on," Arc volunteered helpfully.

"It's not that confusing," Ash protested. "Grovyle, Thunderpunch!"

Grovyle's right hand lit up with sparks of lightning, and he punched in the direction of Chandelure. A Raikou made of living lightning darted forwards and pounced on Chandelure, producing a cloud of sparks and knocking the Ghost-type back, and Shauntal waved her hand.

"This is exactly what I'm talking about," she said. "You call for Thunderpunch, and he makes a tiger-dog out of lightning. How is that even the same attack?"

"He did punch," Ash said. "I don't see the problem."

"Chandelure, Fire Spin!" Shauntal decided. "Wrap yourself in fire so that Groyvle can't see where you are, then send it at him!"

Chandelure's flames blazed up, forming a spiral that engulfed first herself and then both Pokémon, and Ash shaded his eyes to see through it.

"Grovyle, Phantom Force it!" he said, and the Fire Spin vanished all at once.

"Oh, come on," Shauntal groaned. "How did you do that one?"

"Grovyle put it in the Reverse World!" Ash explained.

"Am I a tiger dog?" Raikou asked.

She tried to look at her own coat pattern, which involved spinning around three times and falling over.

"I think there's definitely some cat and some dog in each of us," Suicune replied, smiling at the antics of her sister. "You can be a tiger dog if you want… you can also be a flying tiger dog, don't forget."

"Oh, good point," Raikou agreed, still lying on her back.

Ash frowned, thinking.

"I know!" he said. "Grovyle, set yourself on fire!"

Even for Grovyle, that prompted Ash's Pokémon to look back and make sure he'd heard right.

"I know what I mean!" Ash assured him, and Grovyle nodded before using Phantom Force. This time the Fire Spin he'd stored there came right back out, and set him on fire.

"Facade!" Ash added, which made Grovyle charge forwards and go right through Chandelure.

"...hmm," Shauntal said. "That's an obvious mistake but this could all be… but… no, if I start overthinking this I'll never stop. Chandelure, Hex!"

"Mimic!" Ash called immediately. "Thunder Wave! Substitute! Now use Hex on Chandelure!"

At the end of an overlapping blur of moves, Grovyle was no longer on fire and was bombarding Chandelure with her own copied Ghost-type move.

"I should have known," Shauntal sighed.

Ash picked Grimsley as his third challenge, and the Dark-type trainer rubbed his chin in thought before selecting one of his Pokémon.

"All right," he said. "Bit of a gamble, but let's see what happens. Ready?"

He got a thumbs-up, and both trainers sent out their first Pokémon – Heracross for Ash and Honchkrow for Grimsley.

"Oh, cool," the Elite Four member said. "I think this is one of the few Pokémon on my team who'd have a chance against a Heracross. Take off, Honchkrow!"

The Flying-type spread his wings, flapping into the air, and Grimsley pointed. "Air Cutter!"

"Rock Tomb but don't throw it!" Ash countered. "Use it as a shield!"

The swiping blade of air crashed into Heracross' rocky shield, and Grimsley nodded in appreciation.

"Quick thinking," he said. "I like it."

"Now, punch yourself with Plasma Fists and use Hyper Beam!" Ash went on.

Grimsley's nod of approval turned into a frown. "I don't like it."

A spike of electricity blazed up from the ground, only catching Honchkrow in the outer layer of the blast but still knocking the Flying-type about visibly.

"Huh, I guess you could fly up there, but Honchkrow can still go faster," Ash said, clearly thinking hard.

"Stay out of his reach," Grimsley directed. "Nasty Plot and then another Air Cutter."

"Heraa?" Heracross said.

"Yeah, that'll work!" Ash agreed "Use Stone Edge for stepping stones, get above him! Then Plasma Fists again and Comet Punch back down!"

During the battle, there was a thump noise, and Chimchar looked over to his right.

"Pikachu?" he said, surprised. "Were you here a moment ago?"

"No," Pikachu replied, shaking himself. "I can't remember, did you meet those two Pichu before?"

"Oh, yes!" Chimchar brightened. "They turned up again?"

"Well, it depends how you count turning up," Pikachu said. "They'd got stuck in the Reverse World, and they made several small explosions so Axew, Tepig, Dwebble and I got stuck in there. I was in the shower."

"That's terrible," the Fire-type gasped. "How did you get out?"

"I managed to get them all calmed down, and we went on an adventure to find Giratiny," Pikachu answered. "We didn't have to go far, but it's the Reverse World, you know how it is… now Giratiny's opening Reverse World portals to drop us off back where we should be."

Over in the distance, Tepig landed on Dewott's head.

"Or, you know, fairly close," Pikachu added. "I'm sure it'll be fine. How's Ash doing?"

Chimchar pointed. "Dragonite's baked himself an attack bread and he's using it in a sword fight against a Bisharp. I think he called it seared sword."

"So, the usual," Pikachu summarized. "Well, I'm sure I can wait a bit before going back over to join Ash again."

"I'd want to ask where you get such odd Pokémon," Grimsley admitted. "But then I remember that I saw how the tiny Giratina came about… I'm not sure any of them would make much more sense than that one."

"Well, life stories are often kind of odd!" Ash replied brightly. "Pikachu got raised by Kangaskhan."

Grimsely visibly contemplated that one.

"It doesn't explain much about him, but thanks for the example," he said. "And no, don't tell me where the little shiny Galarian Moltres came from, it'd probably just give me a headache or something."

He held up his next Pokéball. "Krookodile, go! Dig underground to stay out of attack range!"

"Follow them!" Ash countered, and Moltres did a flip before zipping down through the tunnel Krookodile had left.

There was a small explosion underground, followed by a whack, and both Pokémon came bursting back out of the soil in the middle of an exchange of blows.

"Thunder Fang, Krookodile," Grimsley directed. "Then back underground and fill in the hole behind you."

Moltres flinched back from the attack, then rose into the air as Krookodile vanished underground.

"Any ideas?" the Flying-type asked.

"Yeah!" Ash replied. "Get a Solarbeam ready, then cloak yourself in Fiery Wrath and follow Krookodile again!"

Moltres began to glow as he charged up, and Grimsley coughed.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" he asked. "How would that work?"

"It's melting through the ground," Ash answered. "I know it's not as efficient a way of digging as using Dig, but Moltres is small so he doesn't have to displace much ground."

"No, that's not what I mean," Grimsley replied. "Fiery Wrath is actually a Dark type move, not a Fire type move."

"Yeah!" Ash agreed. "That looks good, Moltres, down you go!"

Moltres folded in a wing, dropping towards the ground, then lit up with sinister black flames and went underground with a rrumble.

"See, because it's like fire, but not fire, it works better," Ash said. "It's to do with type effectiveness."

Grimsley opened his mouth to reply, but Ash was still going. "See, while Fire isn't any less effective against Ground than Dark type moves are, it's not just that which is what happens when you use fire to dig into something. You can extinguish a fire by putting sand on it, so trying to get through a lot of ground will eventually wear out a fire unless it's hot enough and energetic enough, but because Fiery Wrath is a good Dark type imitation of fire then it's got some of the properties of a Fire-type attack but not all of them. Otherwise there'd be no point in it."

"Uh…" Grimsley said. "Pokémon attacks don't have to have a point to them, they just are. The basic ones, anyway."

"Really?" Ash asked. "Huh. I'm pretty sure I've invented some, so I assume they were all invented at some point. Possibly by Arceus or Mew. I should ask them sometime."

A brilliant green laser came blazing out of the ground.

"Great work, Moltres!" Ash called.

"I missed, though," Moltres admitted, flying back into the air, and began charging again.

"That's okay!" Ash said. "Now you just need to-"

"How did Moltres find Krookodile down there?" Grimsley asked.

"Huh, actually, that is a good question," Moltres said. "I just sort of looked around, and eventually I ran into them."

"Then I've got a new idea!" Ash decided. "You've got your Solarbeam ready, right? Then use Hurricane down the hole you came up!"

Moltres darted over to the hole and hammered a wave of wind down it, and halfway across the arena the ground erupted to shoot Krookodile into the air.

"Now!" Ash said, and Krookodile got hit with the greenish-yellow blast of light.

"Okay, new plan," Grimsley decided, as his Ground-type slid across the grass before coming to a stop. "Sandstorm!"

"Fly high to charge a Solarbeam!" Ash called. "Only go into the sandstorm to attack!"

Grimsley sighed as he sat down.

"It's an experience, isn't it?" Caitlin said.

"I think my experience was different from yours, but… yes," Grimsley agreed. "He's a skilled trainer with an insane collection of Pokémon, and that seems like enough, but then he pulls out something ridiculous like a Dragonite who fights with bread or… that Pikachu."

He brushed off his sleeves. "Still, at least it's Marshal's turn now. Let's see what happens."

AN:

Pikachu, Everything's Upside Down?

Also, this fic's now at 200 chapters and over 500,000 words… still going for now.