Principal Oak assigned Kukui's class the task of looking after an egg – one of two, with one of them being the one Ash had brought from Kanto and the other from a mountain on Ula'ula island – and said that he was sure taking care of whichever egg they picked would teach them all an important lesson about Pokémon.

"What do you think?" Mallow asked, looking at her classmates. "Which one should we pick?"

Sophocles shrugged.

"I don't know," Kiawe said. "Which is which?"

"That's up to you to decide," Principal Oak said, with a chuckle. "If you can't tell, you're just picking at random, right? And there's nothing wrong with that."

"What about if Lillie's the one to choose?" Lana suggested. "Pokémon eggs are less scary than hatched Pokémon, right?"

Lillie nodded. "I… well, I think so?"

She looked at the two eggs for a long moment, then pointed at the white one dappled with blue and green markings. "That one, if that's all right."

"Of course it is," Principal Oak confirmed. "That's the whole point of the lesson you'll be learning. Now, what do you know about Pokémon eggs?"

"Oh!" Sophocles realized, holding up his hand. "Is it that they can learn things while they're still in the egg?"

"Well done," Oak said. "Keep that in mind. That means you can introduce yourselves to this Pokémon before they're even born."

Lillie nodded, then knelt down.

"I'm sorry," she began. "I'm not very good at touching Pokémon, but… I'm going to try my best with you. Even if I can only do it when you're an egg."

She reached out and touched the egg, then pulled her hand back quickly.

"Well done, Lillie," Ash told her. "That's an important step."

"Then you'll be having that egg," Principal Oak said. "Congratulations, and take good care of them."

"Sir?" Sophocles said, raising his hand. "Um… I have a question."

"Go ahead," Samson Oak invited.

"Why are you dressed as a Chansey?"

Apparently it was because an Exeggutor wasn't quite as relevant to giving away eggs.

With the egg back in the classroom, Ash went to the front of the class.

"So today we're doing introductions again!" he said. "This time they're different, though, for two reasons. The first is that it's going to be everyone introducing themselves where the egg can hear it, so that they learn your voice and even what you look like."

"Eggs can see as well as hear?" Kiawe said, amazed.

"That's right," Ash agreed. "My Larvitar was stolen when he was an egg, but he remembered what happened to the egg before he hatched from it, and that's a lot of what he had to work through. It's hard dealing with something like that."

He smiled. "But the second reason is that everyone will be introducing themselves."

Lokoko came in through the door, and waved a paw – the one with her anklet ring glittering on it.

"Good afternoon, everyone," she said. "My name is Lokoko, and I am a Ninetales."

"Wow!" Sophocles said. "She can speak human?"

"Yes, but that's not what I'm doing," Lokoko replied. "Actually, what I'm doing is providing simultaneous translation."

"She's using psychic powers," Ash explained. "The way it works is, it's sort of like you're getting the meanings of the words at the same time as the Pokémon says them. And it works on any Pokémon."

"It does?" Togedemaru asked. "Does that mean what I think it means?"

"Did you just say what I think you said?" Sophocles asked, looking down at his starter. "That's so cool!"

"That's amazing," Mallow agreed. "So we can talk to any Pokémon, as long as Lokoko is around?"

"That's right," Ash agreed. "Sooner or later I'll try teaching you how to understand Pokémon yourselves, but it's better not to have you waiting most of the term until you can do that so this way's better for now."

"So when you say we're all introducing ourselves," Kiawe began. "That means our Pokémon, too?"

"Correct," Arc stated.

"What does that bracelet mean?" Lana asked. "I don't think I've seen one like it before. Is that a Mega Stone?"

"No, it's not," Lokoko told her. "It's my wedding ring. The reason you haven't seen me before now is mostly that my wife and I were on our honeymoon."

"Oh, wow, congratulations!" Kiawe said. "...wow, it's weird how much understanding what Pokémon say makes you react differently, even though it shouldn't."

"So long as you notice it, it's okay!" Ash supplied. "It means you know what you can work on and do better, right?"

Kiawe nodded.

"Now, who wants to go first?" Ash asked. "If you've got Pokémon, let's hear from them too. This is sort of like their first chance to say hello to you!"

Lillie ended up taking the egg home herself, to keep it safe at night, and Ash accompanied her home because she didn't have any Pokémon to protect herself.

That meant seeing her house, which was really more of a mansion, and Ash also met her butler – a man called Hobbes, who welcomed Ash, Pikachu, Rotom and Lokoko into the building separately.

He even had some cakes ready.

"I'm sure you're aware of the young lady's difficulties," he said. "And, if you'll forgive the impertinence, I must say that I'm grateful for the opportunities offered for her to work through it."

"Taking time to heal is important," Lokoko opined. "And that means not working an injured muscle too hard, or that can make the injury worse. The same is true of an injury of the heart."

"Well said," Hobbes decided.

"I have exhaustively checked all my files on Poképhobia!" Rotom announced. "I have decided that the files I have on Poképhobia are not helpful, because they are all about how Pokémon do not help with it."

"What about soft toys?" Ash said. "One of my Pokémon's got a big collection of soft toys, and you could probably borrow some."

"We already did that bit," Lillie told him. "It's a nice offer, though."

"That's good," Ash decided. "I would have to work out whose the toys actually are…"

Aten sneezed.

This disrupted his attempt to go for the jugular on a life-sized plush Wailmer.

"How can I have a cold?" he demanded, of the air. "I'm not even alive!"

The plush Wailmer fell over, and he huffed. "I bet this wouldn't happen if I was a Ho-Oh."

"So, Ash, I was wondering," Kukui said, at the start of the weekend. "I know you've done great work at teaching my class, so far, but would you like to help out with different research?"

"Oh, sure!" Ash agreed. "What kind of research!"

"You'd think you'd ask before that bit," Rockruff said, looking up from their breakfast.

"Yeah, but… my trainer," Pikachu replied.

"Well, it's actually related to Z Crystals and Z-moves," Kukui explained. "You see, what Professor Oak and I want to find out about that is whether there are any Z-moves we haven't heard of before – new Z-moves that simply haven't been discovered because nobody's had the right combination of Pokémon and crystal."

"Well, I guess that's possible," Ash mused, thinking out loud. "How are you counting Genesis Supernova? That's Mew's one, but Professor Oak saw me use it a couple of years ago, only it was more like forty and a bit years ago for him because of time travel."

"That sounds amazing!" Kukui said. "Can you demonstrate?"

"No, I gave the Z-crystal back to young Sammy Oak," Ash explained. "So he could give it to me to give to him, so it was there when I needed it."

"Right," Kukui decided. "Well, I think we can probably say that that Z-crystal won't wear out, but under more normal circumstances they can be damaged. There's ways to get replacements, we think, but usually they come from the Totem Pokémon and the Island Guardians, and then down to us. So the true source of the Z-crystals isn't really known – something else you could help with."

He brightened. "Still, if Tapu Koko is willing to give you a Z-ring the first time he sees you, maybe doing the island trials will mean your Z-crystals let you do extra research?"

"Accessing available data on the trials," Arc said. "There are Totem trials, which involve defeating a Totem Pokémon, and there are Grand Trials involving battling a Kahuna."

"Then I guess we should do a Totem Trial!" Ash decided.

"A challenger!" Gumshoos declared, springing into view as Ash entered their cave. "Aha!"

"Hi!" Ash said, waving. "Hey, Ibid, is it me or is that one of those Pokémon that's bigger than normal?"

Ibid turned into a miniature Gumshoos.

"Yes," he said. "Gumshoos is normally smaller than this."

"Of course, I'm a Totem Pokémon," Gumshoos grumbled. "Do you not get how this works?"

"I'm new to Alola," Ash said. "But I've got a Pokémon who's interested in examples of Pokémon being bigger than normal, it's kind of a hobby she has. So Totem Pokémon are bigger than normal?"

He frowned. "Is that something to do with the same reason you have Z-crystals? Is it like Dynamax?"

"I have absolutely no idea what Dynamax is," Gumshoos said. "But, anyway, are you actually here to do a totem challenge, or just a chat?"

The Normal-type thumped both forepaws on the ground, and a smaller Gumshoos plus three Yungoos appeared. "Just asking."

"Totem challenge!" Ash said. "What kind of rules are there?"

"One Pokémon at a time, unless I call in reinforcements," Gumshoos said. "If I do, you get two at a time. You can use up to six Pokémon, because this is about worthiness and strength and stuff. If you beat the challenge, well… hang on a sec."

The Totem Pokémon held up their forepaws, making a frame shape around Ash, then ducked back into the rear of the cave.

"I wonder what that is about," Zygarde said.

"I wonder if we're going to have a battle," Rowlet chirped.

Gumshoos came back with a photocopied sheet containing a picture of Ash, and compared it to him.

"Yeah, that's you," they decided. "Okay, I've got special instructions for this one."

They whistled, and all three of the Yungoos plus the regular Gumshoos formed a neat queue.

"Two at once," Gumshoos explained, as Yungoos number one loped forwards.

"Sounds great!" Ash decided. "Rowlet, ready?"

"Ready!" Rowlet agreed.

Ash sent out Meganium. "Ready?"

"Of course," Meganium confirmed.

"Yeah, I see why the bosses sent out special instructions," Gumshoos decided. "Right, let's do this!"

"Sunny Day, Meganium!" Ash called. "Rowlet, fly into the Sunny Day!"

Gumshoos kicked up a cloud of sand with Sand Attack, and the Yungoos darted forwards within it before springing into the air to use Hyper Fang.

Meganium's vine flicked out, and she yanked Rowlet out of the way of the attack.

"Careful," she warned. "How's your charge?"

"Still a bit sleepy," Rowlet replied, then ducked as Yungoos tried to hit him with a Take Down.

Meganium used Sunny Day again.

"And keep an eye out on everything that's going on," she cautioned.

"I'll keep my head on a swivel!"

"Gotta admit, that was some cool moves," the Totem Pokémon said, once the battle was over. "Never seen a Rowlet do that before."

Rowlet snored.

"Well, seen one do that before, but not the other thing," Gumshoos said, then reached down and tried to pull a Leafage leaf out of the ground.

It was embedded about a centimetre deep into the rock, and they had to lean back hard before it actually came out.

"Yeah, Rowlet's a bit dozy normally, but that's because he normally uses up energy a lot during the night," Ash said. "So he's naturally predisposed to sleep during the day, to leave him enough solar energy to do things at night. I'm going to work on having him learn Sunny Day himself, but until then if he's going to be in a serious battle he needs a charge-up! And if you're charging up, why stop too soon?"

"And then of course you did it that much," Gumshoos said. "Makes sense to me. Anyway… hey, Yungoos."

The one who hadn't got around to battling perked up.

"Go and grab the green crystal, okay?" they ordered.

Yungoos darted off, and Zygarde raised a paw.

"The green crystal?" they asked. "That implies there is more than one crystal and that you only have one green one. Does that mean Ash's reward is abnormal?"

"Yeah, special instructions," Gumshoos confirmed, taking the crystal when Yungoos got back. "Here you go. It's a Grassium Z with a bit of extra. Try it out some time."

"Thanks!" Ash replied. "Are the bosses the Island Guardians?"

"That's them," Gumshoos agreed. "Koko's a bit… koko… but he's got a good heart, probably."

AN:

Really, if you can speak to them it simplifies things a bit.

I could have been referring to several things this chapter.