At the first chance she got, May sat down with her Eevee.

"So… you probably gathered things were a bit busy there," she said. "But now that I've got the chance, it's nice to meet you."

Eevee nodded, ears flapping.

"It's nice to meet you as well," she said.

Ash's Zorua sprang out of his backpack.

"That's another one," the Dark-type said. "I knew Togepi was the odd one out!"

"Togepi?" Eevee repeated, head tilting. "What's a Togepi got to do with it?"

"That was before you were around," Zorua said. "Also before May was around. But I've been wondering about whether Pokémon that hatch tend to be one way or another."

He flicked his tail. "It's just a thing I wonder about, don't worry about it."

Eevee laughed softly, then looked up at May. "This is the first time I've done anything like this. Am I doing it okay?"

"I don't think there's a wrong way to introduce yourself, at least not to me," May said. "Unless you're really badly behaved, and I don't think you are."

She frowned, slightly. "So what I tend to do is Contest battles, if you know what those are?"

"I heard you talking about them," Eevee pointed out. "After you picked my egg up. I didn't see the Silver Town Contest but it sounded interesting – so I think that's going to be good."

May chuckled. "That's good to hear," she told the Normal-type. "Well… you haven't had anything to eat, yet, so I'll order some Pokéblocks and you can see what kind of food you like."

Eevee nodded.

Then Brock's Eevee came bounding over.

"Eevee buddies!" she announced. "It's going to be great having someone who's sort-of-like a sister around some of the time, when our schedules line up!"

May's Eevee considered that.

"Hopefully I'll get used to which of us is which Eevee," she said.

May was using her Pokéblock app to order a mixed platter, but once that was done she held out her arms to her Eevee.

"Do you know what moves you've hatched with?" she said. "If not, we could go over and borrow Ibid to get an idea what they are."

"Well… I'm a Normal type," May's Eevee said, thinking, then trotted over to clamber into May's arms. "So I expect I'd know Normal moves."

"There's some really fun moves you can learn that aren't Normal type!" Brock's Eevee said. "Like Floaty Fall! That means I can fly!"

May's Eevee considered, then tapped her ears together twice.

Her fur lit up with white light.

"Flash," she said. "How does that do?"

"That's a pretty good move," May told her. "It's not so good for pure battles, but it's great for Contests."

Eevee twitched her ears, this time, and the colour changed to blue.

"Ooh, I didn't know I could do that," she said, slowly going from blue through purple to red. "What do you think?"

"I think we should check you don't have Color Change," May chuckled. "It'd be a bit too literal, though."

May's new Eevee turned out not to have much in the way of food preferences, happy to try anything, and spent several minutes asking Munchlax about what was nice.

Then she turned her Flash off, which made Munchlax blink before saying he'd thought she was a shiny Pokémon. After contemplating that, though, the Big Eater Pokémon just shrugged and got back to his meal.

"Hmm…" May said, thinking. "Eevee, do you know how a Flareon looks? I think you could actually fake being one."

She shrugged. "I'm not sure it would help, but it'd look nice."

"Aren't Flareon normally bigger than Eevee?" Max asked.

Then looked over at Rayquaza, who was sprinkling some space rock on her Pokéblock.

"Never mind, forget I said anything," he decided.

"Well, I'm not sure what it is," Brock announced, at lunch the next day after looking over May's orb. "It's warm, and that's about all I know."

"No data," Ibid concurred.

"Weird," May said. "Well, I guess either we'll find out sooner or later or we won't, and since Celebi said something about destiny I'm guessing that we probably will find out at some point."

Ash nodded. "Makes sense to me."

"And you're the expert," Max said. "...actually, Ash, I know it's your first name but you could probably be a Pokémon Professor. You've got a tree name, like us and like Professors Oak and Birch, and you know things about Pokémon that other people don't even know are things."

"It's not that hard to learn stuff like that," Ash said, shrugging. "You just need to listen."

"And possibly have Aura," Pikachu pointed out. "Or whatever else it is that means you've been surrounded by Legendary Pokémon since age seven."

"Honestly, computer games help," Latias said, from where she was having her own lunch. "That's been my experience, anyway, and it's Silver's experience too. And Latios's… in fact, they're in the middle of a racing game right now. Shaymintwo's getting really frustrated that it's not his turn."

She giggled. "I think he's not far off going to get some Gracidea and challenging Latios to a race."

"That would be pretty fun to see," Brock admitted. "Misty told me about the sled race, but I missed it."

"Yeah, that was a lot of fun," Latias smiled. "First time I made a snow-Pokémon, too, Altomare is too warm for it. It never snowed there until the winter between that race and when Ash caught us."

"Is it technically catching a Pokémon if they volunteer to join in?" Ash asked, frowning. "Because if it doesn't count, then I'm not sure how many Pokémon I've caught but it's not a big number."

"Which is entirely in your favour, Ash," Lokoko said. "Though I think it's more that you have the opportunity to ask, and so you do – for all of your Pokémon."

She tilted her head, slightly.

Then there was an oof, and a boy wearing a disguise cloth fell out of a nearby tree.

"Found you!" Purrloin announced. "You know, it's not usually safe to sneak around someone with so many illusion Pokémon."

"Sneaking is the way of the ninja," the boy replied, springing to his feet. "But I'm a little surprised I understood that."

"I'm on translation duty today," Lokoko said.

"Oh, you're a ninja?" Ash asked. "That's neat. I've got a Pokémon who's a ninja, too… well, I guess I've got a Pokémon who's a ninja without the advantage of being a Zorua."

"Zorua are quite ninja," the ninja agreed. "Why don't you come to visit our training camp? Maybe we can give you some tips."

As it turned out, the ninja training camp could give them a few tips.

They mostly revolved around how to take care of a Bonsly, though, because a Bonsly fell right into Brock's arms during the visit and refused to let go.

And Grovyle learned how to use Grass Shuriken, which was particularly surprising as that wasn't something they were trying to teach him and he wasn't trying to learn it, and it was a Grass typed version of a move that was normally only available as a Water type move, specifically for Greninja.

It was, however, acceptably ninja.

"This place is kind of run down," May said, looking around as they arrived in Fuchsia City. "It's not, you know, bad, just… not what I'd expect?"

"I know what you mean," Brock admitted. "Last time we were in the area there was a fake Pokémon Daycare being run by Team Rocket – not the ones we usually meet, but some other ones."

"That sounds terrible," May winced. "Didn't the police notice?"

"They were only planning to be around for a few days, I think," Brock said, thinking back. "Crobat – he was a Zubat then – snuck in and freed all the Pokémon."

Max whistled. "That's pretty cool."

As the others kept talking, though, May spotted someone in the building they were going past.

"That's weird," she muttered. "Guys, I might be a few minutes, okay? I just want to see what's going on here."

"Sure," Ash agreed. "Do you want our help?"

"I should be fine," May replied. "I'll meet you at the Pokémon Centre later – Dragonite and I will find it just fine."

Ash, Brock and Max kept walking, and May peered into the abandoned building before sending out Eevee.

"Can you give us some light?" she asked.

"Vee!" Eevee agreed. Her ears lit up, then the rest of her, and May followed her youngest Pokémon into what turned out to be a dilapidated old train station.

It was sort of eerie, and May walked slowly as if she didn't want to disturb someone… and there was someone there to disturb, an elderly woman waiting by the side of the platform.

"Oh, hello, young lady," she said. "What's your name?"

"May," May replied. "Uh… why are you here, ma'am?"

"I'm waiting for the steam train," the woman explained, then tutted. "Oh, where are my manners – my name's Edna. It's nice to meet you."

The arrival of Edna's granddaughter, Katrina, helped to explain a little of what was going on for May.

Edna's husband, Jonathan, had left Fuchsia many years ago to study medicine, then passed away in an accident, and Edna had never got the chance to tell him that she was pregnant. She'd never truly accepted the letter with the news of his death, and deeply regretted having been just a little too late to the station the day he left so she couldn't tell him the good news.

"Veee…" Eevee said, ears going flat.

"I know," May agreed, crouching down to give her Normal-type a hug. "Thank you for telling us, Katrina, but… I honestly don't know what to say."

"The way I think of it is… it shows that grandma really loved him," Katrina said. "Sorry for getting you involved, though."

Eevee snuggled against May, then blinked and flicked her tail.

"Is something wrong?" May asked, already regretting not having Vulpix or Lokoko along… or even Max, because Ralts could help him translate.

"Vee!" Eevee said, jumping down onto the old train tracks, and her paws scrabbled away to reveal something golden next to one of the sleepers.

It was a locket, and May picked it up with a frown.

"Grandma, look!" Katrina called. "Is that your locket?"

Then it flashed, and suddenly Katrina and Edna had vanished.

And the train station was fixed.

"What just happened?" May asked, then Dragonite came out of his Safari Ball and lifted them both out of the train tracks before a train arrived.

"So what I want to know is… there are move variants, right?" Zorua said. "Like Night Slash and Leaf Blade. And then there's moves which are the same no matter what type you make them, like Protect. Sometimes it's an icy shield, sometimes it's pure psychic energy, but either way it's the same thing."

He pointed at Grovyle, who was eating a bowl of food at a leisurely pace and somehow keeping up with Torkoal (who was putting a lot more effort in). "And then there's moves where there isn't a different-type version until we discover them. But there should be… and then there's weird moves like Forest's Curse, which is different to Soak."

"Is there a point somewhere in this lecture?" Pikachu asked.

"Firstly, shush you," Zorua said, sticking his tongue out. "And second, when we get the chance I want to see if Grass-type Soak is different to Soak. We can use Unown and Skitty to do the experiments, right?"

May came in through the door, and walked up to Ash, Brock and Max.

"I have had a bit of a strange day," she said. "Firstly, the whole city's different now. It was really run down earlier, and now it's much nicer."

"Huh?" Max asked. "What do you mean, run down? Didn't you see someone with a Furfrou earlier?"

"Not originally, I think," May said, as all the Pokémon turned to listen in. "Also, I went back in time and ended up having to make it snow, so Skitty and Dragonite made an Ice-typed Twister. Then this old lady I met when I came back to the present was running a daycare in town, invited me back for tea, and… it was a bit odd," she summarized.

"Time stuff can be a bit weird," Ash agreed.

"Oh, I did find out what that thing Celebi gave me was, though," May added, opening her bag, and lifted a little blue Pokémon out.

"So it was an egg!" Zorua said brightly. "Hello! Are you like me, like Eevee, like Phanpy or like Togepi?"

Ash was already holding Ibid up, and his Pokédex switched shape.

"Manaphy," he said. "The Seafaring Pokémon. It has the unique power to bond with any Pokémon on a heart-to-heart level."

Thus named, Manaphy waved, then held up his arms and May picked him up.

"Mama," he announced, hugging her.

"Oh, is that what he was saying!" May asked, touched.

"He might just be saying your name and not be very good at it," Max suggested. "You know. May Maple?"

May scowled at her brother.

"So, like Togepi, then," Zorua judged. "Neat!"

AN:

This is a weird episode.