Thanks Every for beta'ing this chapter!

It started with a slight drizzle, quickly turning into a brutal downpour. Ivy, Emily and Mike bolted for cover. They all knew that storms like these hit hard and fast, and they'd save themselves a lot of suffering if they just waited it out under the cover of something. The nearest shelter came in the form of a narrow cave opening, and they rushed in too quickly to notice the faint purple aura radiating from the entrance. Fortunately, it was far more spacious on the inside. It seemed someone else had had the same idea. There was a lady wearing a plum-coloured coat and matching beret sitting on a rock, staring intently at her laptop. She looked up as the three of them entered.

"Lovely weather, isn't it?" she said with a distinctly Unovan accent. Clearly she was a tourist of some sort.

"Eh, you know what they say," Mike replied. "Here in Galar, you can experience all 4 seasons in a matter of hours."

"As I've seen…" she replied, closing her laptop.

"So, what brings you to our lovely region?" Mike asked.

"Well, I'm here for business, but I had some free time and decided to see the sights."

"This is certainly rotten weather for any sightseeing," Emily said. "It's a shame, really."

"Meh, at least I'm getting the full Galar experience. Say, are you kids doing the gym challenge? I've heard that's starting in a few days."

"Yes! How did you know?" Emily asked.

"Lucky guess. I'm looking forward to watching the opening ceremony with some colleagues of mine."

"It's usually quite the spectacle," Emily commented. "I would always watch it with my family live from the stadium."

"Wait, what?!" Mike exclaimed. "But like… The tickets cost a ton and they sell out so fast!"

"Really? I never realised," Emily said nonchalantly.

"Hmm… I'm surprised nothing's shown up in here yet," the tourist mused. "From what I've read this is a Dynamax den or something."

"Oh yeah, I guess this is probably a max raid den," Mike realised. "Hopefully this storm will blow over before we get attacked by something."

As soon as he said that, there was a distant rumbling from deep in the cave.

"What perfect timing," the tourist said with a smirk. "Ready your Poké Balls, people. Kali, you're up!"

The tourist adjusted her glasses and held her laptop up, and a Porygon with what appeared to be Skitty ears attached to its head hopped out. Marcus hopped off of Ivy's head. Chantilly floated in front of Mike, and Emily sent out Juliet. The rumbling came closer, as red clouds started to form on the roof of the den. Finally, they could see the Pokémon they'd be facing. The Sinistea stared down at them grumpily, the red aura surrounding it exemplifying that anger. Ivy heard a quiet whimpering to her left, and noticed Emily seemed to have completely frozen up.

"Are you okay?" Ivy asked.

"Ghostghostghostghostghost…" Emily kept muttering under her breath. "I can't… I'm so… Sorry... I can't… I just…"

She ran out of the den into the pouring rain. Juliet galloped after her.

"I hope she's okay," the tourist said. "But we need to deal with this first."

Ivy heard her Dynamax band make a noise. She rolled up her sleeve and saw the logo on it had lit up. She wondered if either of her allies could Dynamax.

"Kali, use Thundershock!" the tourist interrupted Ivy's train of thought.

Her Porygon unleashed a jolt of electricity towards the Sinistea. The Sinistea responded by unleashing a barrage of giant seeds towards the Porygon. The seeds erupted into giant mushrooms which exploded in a flash of green light. Kali acted unfazed, but had clearly been hit hard. Lush grass sprung up all over the den.

"Erm… Chantilly doesn't have any moves that'll hit a Ghost type," Mike sighed. "I guess we'll have to use Aromatic Mist on Ivy's Blipbug!"

Chantilly wafted a pleasant smelling mist towards Marcus. It did... something.

"Hey, would you guys mind if I Dynamaxed Marcus?" Ivy asked, wanting to be sure she wasn't stealing someone else's thunder.

"I don't have a Dynamax band," the tourist shrugged.

"And as I said I wouldn't be able to do anything, so go ahead," Mike added.

"Okay then… Marcus, are you ready?"

Ivy withdrew Marcus and held out the Poké Ball. Energy surged from her Dynamax band to her Poké Ball, and it grew in size. She steadied the ball with her free hand and turned around to face away from the Sinistea. With all her might, she flung the ball over her head. Marcus reappeared in a burst of light, having grown to about ten times his size.

WOOOOAAAAAH! LOOK AT THIS VIEW! Marcus boomed telepathically.

"A telepathic Blipbug? Nice," the tourist smirked.

"Okay Marcus, use Max Flutterby!" Ivy ordered.

A swarm of glowing green butterflies appeared around Marcus. The swarm then charged at the giant teacup, exploding on impact.

This seemed to only further anger the Sinistea, who summoned a barrage of ghostly floating furniture and flung them towards Marcus.

"Kali! Take out some of that furniture!" the tourist commanded.

Her Porygon flew into a flying chair, which exploded on impact. Kali flew through it unharmed, and headed to the next piece of furniture. Marcus was too busy admiring the Porygon's tactics to dodge the flying furniture himself, and unlike Kali he was not immune to them.

"Erm… Aromatic Mist again, I guess," Mike said.

Chantilly blew another pleasant smelling mist over towards Marcus.

"Kali! Thundershock, let's go!"

The Porygon unleashed another bolt of electricity. The Sinistea seemed unable to retaliate.

"Nice, it's paralyzed," the tourist said, clasping their hands in anticipation.

"Okay Marcus, let's finish this," Ivy yelled. "Max Flutterby!"

Marcus summoned another swarm of butterflies, sending them charging at the Sinistea. They exploded in a green blaze of glory. As the dust cleared, the defeated Sinistea landed on the ground. Marcus shrunk back down to his normal size shortly after.

"I'm gonna try and catch it!" Ivy exclaimed, fishing a spare Poké Ball out of her bag.

The energy from her Dynamax band surrounded the empty Poké Ball, enlarging it. Ivy lifted it into the air with telekinesis, then jumped up and slapped the Poké Ball towards the Sinistea as if she were playing volleyball. The ball opened, and sucked the Pokémon inside. It fell to the ground and wobbled…

...and wobbled…

...and finally shrunk down to normal size with a satisfying click.

Ivy ran over and picked up the Poké Ball. There seemed to be some candy in the crater where it had landed.

"Nice catch!" Mike said, running over to Ivy. "Ooh, some XP candies! Nice."

"XP candies?" Ivy looked at Mike, confused.

"Yeah. I've heard they're made from some of that Dynamax energy or something. They can make a Pokémon super strong if they eat one."

"So they're like rare candies?" The tourist asked.

"Yeah, though sometimes these can be even better!" Mike replied.

Marcus scuttled over to the small crater. He nibbled on a medium sized one. When he had finished the candy, he began to glow brightly. The blue glow lit up the cave as if they were outside.

"Cool! It's evolving!" Mike cheered, shielding his eyes.

Finally the glow died down, making the cave seem very dark all of a sudden. The only light was coming from the flashing spots of a Dottler. Ivy stuffed the Sinistea's Poké Ball in her pocket and tried to pick Marcus up. His new form was more than twice the weight of his old one. She'd have to figure out a new way to carry him.

This thing is heavy… Marcus complained.

"Don't worry, soon enough you'll be an Orbeetle!" Ivy reassured him. "Now that's going to be cool."

Please evolve me quickly…

"Hey, how 'bout we take a look at your new Sinistea?" Mike butted in.

"Yeah, sure."

Ivy let the Sinistea out of it's ball. It looked far less intimidating now it was only the size of a normal teacup. It seemed dazed, but otherwise fine. It seemed to chirp something to Marcus.

She says she's sorry for attacking us. Marcus translated.

"Oh don't worry, it's fine," Ivy said. "Say, seeing as we can talk, do you have a name?"

She says her name was Evelyn before she died.

"So… Evelyn, then?"

The Sinistea seemed to nod.

"Okay, Evelyn it is!" Ivy concluded. Mike turned to face the tourist, who had been watching from a short distance away.

"Thanks for helping us with that!" he said, grinning.

"Oh, it was nothing. I just happened to be here too."

"Yeah, thanks…" Ivy paused. "Sorry, I don't know your name."

"That's not important," the tourist replied with a slight chuckle. "But most people call me Salem. Say, you levitated that Poké Ball in the air when you caught that Sinistea, didn't you?"

"Yeah, that's just about all I can do, though."

Salem's expression turned to one of slight suspicion.

"You're not one of those psychics who've been running around the Wild Area taking people's Pokémon, are you?"

"Nope!" Mike interrupted before Ivy could say anything. "I can vouch for that."

"Okay, be careful out there," Salem said. "A pair of them tried to relieve me of half my team earlier."

"We will. Thanks for the heads up!" Ivy replied, withdrawing her Pokémon and heading to the entrance of the den. "Seems the rain's cleared up."

"Time to get moving, then!" Mike proclaimed, marching back out into the wild area with Chantilly in tow. "See you at the opening ceremony!"

Ivy only had time to wave before he sped off. She followed suit shortly after.

She made it back up the hill and was finally back on what she was sure was the correct path this time. She heard a faint sniffle nearby. She looked to her side and saw Emily, soaked through from the rain. She looked like she had been crying a lot, and her Ponyta was standing at her side, equally concerned.

"Are you ok?" Ivy asked.

"Yes, I'm fine. Sorry about earlier, I'm terrible with Ghost-types, especially one that size. So, which way is it to Hammerlocke?"

"Erm, we're heading to Motostoke, but the entrance should be just down this hill."

"Oops…" Emily sighed. "Okay, then what are we waiting for? Let's get going!"

"It's good to see you're doing okay," someone behind them said. Ivy turned around to see it was Salem again.

"Yes, I'm fine. Why is everyone acting so concerned?" Emily replied, slightly irritated.

"Oh, nothing," Salem smiled. "I actually came looking for you so I could give you your phone back. I think you must've dropped it when you rushed out of the den."

Salem rummaged through her pocket and pulled out Emily's Poryphone.

"Oh, thank you!" Emily smiled, taking her phone back.

"I see you've also recognised the obvious superiority of Porygon products over Rotom ones," Salem commented, smiling at Emily.

"Yes, definitely," Emily nodded. "I quite like how customizable they are. With its help I was even able to create a nice little reminder app!"

"Nice! I guess maybe since they're made of code it would make sense that they would have an innate understanding of it. Whatever it is, it certainly makes a lot of things way easier."

From there, the conversation spiralled into jargon Ivy couldn't hope to understand. The most understandable parts were the beeps and chirps of their Porygon. She was content to sit there and try and look like she had any sort of knowledge about technology.

"Yeah, and if you need to they can even break into other people's systems!" Salem said slightly too enthusiastically.

"Impressive. Wait, what?" Emily paused. Her eyes narrowed slightly.

"Yeah. Of course other Porygon are also great at defending your devices from Porygon-based attacks."

"I guess it's a good thing we use them, then."

"Indeed."

The conversation was interrupted by a phone ringing.

"It's mine," Salem explained as she took her own phone out of one of the many pockets in her trousers.

"Hello?"

"It's been nice out here. Might do this more often."

"Nothing major, just one of those Dynamax battle things. Actually now you mention it, there were these two people who tried to make off with half my team."

"I think they were. They certainly dressed like it."

"Yeah, of course. I may be the tech guy but that doesn't mean I can't defend myself."

"Understood. I'll get on it now. See ya!"

Salem put her phone away and turned back to Emily.

"Looks like I've got work to do. It was interesting meeting you guys," she smiled. "Good luck with the gym challenge!"

Salem walked a short distance off and sat on a tree stump that was still soggy from the storm.

"Which way was it to Motostoke again?" Emily asked. Ivy had a look around and could just about make out the red stone gateway to the city.

"Pretty sure it's this way," Ivy said, pointing at it.

"Ah, right. How did I miss that?" Emily sighed. "Onwards!"

Emily marched off into the distance. Ivy followed on a few meters behind. The Motostoke entrance was in sight, so hopefully there would be no more detours. Things were finally looking up. Ivy had a second Pokémon and Marcus would finally be able to do more than use Struggle Bug. Maybe she could actually do it. Maybe she'd finally make her parents proud. Ivy smiled, but stopped herself when she realised it. She couldn't get complacent. They hadn't made it to Motostoke yet.