"How's that?" Manaphy asked, holding his fins up, and a bubble rose into the air.

"That's great!" May told him. "That's just what you were trying to do, right?"

Manaphy nodded, and the water bubble slipped slightly. His tongue went to the side of his mouth and he concentrated, making the bubble rise up again, then split it into two halves.

"Very good," Lokoko said. "The more you can manage more than one object at once, the better you will do at making beautiful things happen."

"Waves are easier," Manaphy said, putting his flippers down. The water splashed down into a wave, and he bounced it back and forth a few times.

"That's good too, though," May told him. "What about doing something with waves for your routine? I bet you could make that look really good."

Manaphy looked very excited. "Like what?"

"Well… what about having a wave always circling around you?" May suggested. "That would look nice, and you could move around with it as well."

The Water-type considered that, and Marill raised a hand.

"Oh, I know!" she said. "If you have a move that makes the water look different, you could mix it in. Then you could have more variety, even though most of the actual difficult bit is your water control… we could ask Mew for ideas?"

May nodded, since that sounded like a good idea.

"And ask Croconaw?" Manaphy said. "Dancing, um, dancing fun?"

"It's dancing is fun, but you're right," May said. "I'll ask Ash if we can borrow him in a bit."

At about the same time, Heracross punched Entei into a tree.

"That's good!" Ash said. "Your aim's really improving!"

"It is a difficult challenge," Heracross admitted, as Entei jumped back down from the tree. "Each opponent has different weight and a different shape."

"Which is why we're training like this," Ash agreed, readily. "Ready to keep going, Entei?"

"We are playing fetch, so it's sort of a silly question," Entei told him. "I know I'm the stick, but still."

"Then this time, let's try with you in the middle of a pounce," Ash suggested. "Get ready, Heracross!"

Heracross set his stance, and Entei paced some distance away before loping forwards.

The Fire-type jumped, pouncing down towards Heracross, and Heracross retaliated with a Mega Punch that sent Entei soaring skywards.

This time, he landed about ten feet short of the tree.

"Oops," Heracross said. "I think I screwed up?"

"I think you didn't quite punch hard enough, that time," Ash judged. "Entei was moving towards you, and you didn't make up for that. But you don't need to in one punch – remember we were talking about vacuum wave?"

"Oh, yes!" Heracross brightened, as Entei hauled his legs out of the ground one by one before loping in for another attack.

This time, he punched Entei up in an uppercut, twisted, and punched four more times. Each punch pushed Entei through the air, and after the fourth one he went whud into the tree.

"Good shot!" he said, then several branches went crash.

"You did check that that tree was unoccupied?" Zygarde verified.

"I did, yeah," Ash nodded.

"I have a question," Crobat said, dangling upside down from a tree.

Since he was doing so on the end of a ten foot Vine Whip, his teammates all jumped.

"Don't do that!" Onix asked. "What is it with you and being sneaky?"

"I mean… bat," Crobat pointed out, flicking one of his wings to point at himself. "Stealth expert. I am the night."

"It's not night right now," Geodude countered.

"That doesn't stop me from being it," Crobat said, countering right back. "Anyway… what I was wondering was, have any of you thought about evolving?"

Onix shifted, his rocks grinding against one another.

"Honestly, I don't think I have a strong opinion one way or the other," he said. "I'd be weaker to some things, more resistant to others… probably a bit stronger overall… but it's not something I'm looking forward to, and it's not something I'm shying away from. I'm Brock's Onix; if I evolved I'd be Brock's Steelix. Either way, it's something that would happen because he wanted it."

He flicked his tail. "But to evolve I'd need a Metal Coat, which would be going out of our way. So it's not likely to happen just because… it's likely to happen, if it happens at all, because Brock wants another Steel type. Or for some other reason. And I'm okay with that."

"That's pretty cool, man," Geodude said. "For myself… I think I might not mind being a Golem, but being a Graveler isn't for me. And you don't see many Gravelers or Golems floating around, and that's kind of a big part of my self image right now. You dig?"

"I dig," Onix nodded. "I don't know if Crobat does, though, he's more of a Vine Whip type."

Geodude punched him, which did nothing of note. "Ha. What about Mega Evolving, though? That's not an option for me or the Crobat-ster, but it is for you two if you evolve."

"I… don't think I'd ever really thought about it," Onix said. "Not because I think we couldn't do it… I know Brock. We could."

"True dat," Geodude rumbled. "You're not wrong there."

Swablu had been thinking the whole time.

"I don't think I know, either," he said. "I'm a bit like Onix, but at the same time… it's that I'm content being who I am. And I wouldn't mind evolving, but it's not something I want to do just because it's an option."

He sang a few notes, making electricity sparkle around his wings. "If it happens, it happens."

Then there was a loud sound from over where the others were.

"What was that?" Onix asked, rising upright, and banged his head on the tree. "Oops!"

The tree fell over with a long, grinding crash.

"...I'll put that back," he added.

"Don't worry!" announced a young woman wearing a uniform. "I know facing an angry Legendary Pokémon can be scary, but a Pokémon Ranger is here to help!"

"I'm not especially angry," Entei said, rolling over on his back and yawning.

"Yeah, Entei's just helping train Heracross!" Ash agreed. "He's pouncing so Heracross gets a better idea of how to punch a moving target!"

The young woman looked confused. "...wait, this is arranged?"

"Yeah!" Ash agreed. "See, over there Clefairy and Pikachu are training, but that doesn't mean either of them's mad. Clefairy's a bit gallic sometimes but it's not the same thing. And – well, over there, Croconaw is teaching Manaphy to dance so I guess that doesn't count as a battle anyway. And Rayquaza said she was going to try out flying really fast, but that's really the sort of thing you have to do a long way away from people so she was going to do it several miles in the air. She'll be back by teatime, she knows when it is."

The Ranger looked distinctly confused.

"Oh, if you're a Ranger, you have one of those Stylus things, right?" Ash asked. "I've always wondered how those work!"

The Ranger – whose name was Solana, and who seemed a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing – demonstrated her Styler for them, and said that the way it worked was by using what was called empathic emulation. It was like a software version of how some Pokémon could contact others through strong emotions, and Stylers worked specifically by letting the Pokémon feel the Ranger's determination to solve the problem at hand and their empathy for all Pokémon.

"That's actually why we don't capture Pokémon," Solana explained. "Some Rangers have a partner Pokémon who stays with them, though I haven't found one yet – but capturing Pokémon means you can't honestly convey that you don't."

"Oh, so it's a bit like Aura?" Ash asked. "That's neat. Lucario says that that kind of thing is really advanced, but I guess he was mostly around a thousand years ago so that might have changed by now."

Solana raised her hand to ask a question, then thought better of it.

"I guess I can see how it would help," Ash added. "But usually when I run into Pokémon in trouble just talking to them helps… maybe using Aura would help calm them down if they're scared, though. I'll have to think about trying that next time."

"You usually do well enough without it," Heracross said.

"Okay, what?" Solana asked, stepping back and pointing at Heracross. "I thought when I heard Entei that that was a Legendary Pokémon thing, but I'm fairly sure Heracross can't talk!"

"Of course they can talk," Ash replied. "They do it all the time, don't they? Most people just don't learn to listen right… and there's a Ninetales I met in Johto who can help people out with that. My friend Brock's Vulpix can too, but I think Lokoko's closer to us at the moment so she's the one doing it."

Lokoko came bounding over, her tails rippling behind her like a wave, and made a pleased noise. "You can call me your Ninetales, you know, Ash," she said. "It's by my own choice, and I know you would let me go if I wanted… I do not mind being called your Pokémon."

"I still prefer to keep it straight that it's your choice," Ash replied.

Solana shook her head. "That's almost exactly the attitude we want from a Ranger, except you have plenty of Pokémon," she said. "And it would help out a lot if we could understand Pokémon, in our line of work… there's enough two-way transmission that we can usually tell what they feel, but that's different from knowing what they mean."

That was about when Brock came over, accompanied by his Pokémon. He saw Solana, began to say something, then visibly changed his mind and tried something else. "Who's this, Ash?"

"She's a Pokémon Ranger!" Ash replied. "I still wonder what it feels like to experience the Styler, but I think it'd be a shame if I made it blow up or something."

"When he says experience, he means use, right?" Solana asked. "Some people think it can be used on humans, but it doesn't work that way."

Swablu sniggered, a high-pitched piping noise, then gasped and fell off Brock's head. Brock caught him mid-fall, concerned, and the rest of Brock's on-hand Pokémon all crowded around.

In Onix's case, this took some care.

"What's wrong, little guy?" Geodude asked.

"I feel all dizzy," Swablu complained. "It's like everything is spinning around, but I can see it isn't…"

"That sounds a lot like travel sickness," Ash suggested. "You know, when you look at something and your sense of whether you're moving disagrees with your eyes?"

"I don't think Brock's a car," Swablu said, managing a smile.

"This has got to be geomagnetic disturbances," Solana declared. "They've been going on for almost a week now, and we're not sure what's causing them… they're unpredictable, but they're in this area."

A Deoxys punctuated the conversation by falling out of a hole in the air.

"We did think it might be a Deoxys…" Solana added, blinking. "I wasn't expecting that theory to be proven so quickly."

As it transpired, Deoxys was not responsible for the geomagnetic disturbances.

Solana was initially surprised by that, and asked if they were understanding right, but Max turned out to be psychically sensitive enough to communicate directly with Deoxys – probably because of his connection to Ralts – and that, plus Lokoko, plus Vulpix repeating her teach-Deoxys-Vulpix trick from LaRousse, and finally Zygarde checking with their Cells to confirm that the distortion effect was not focused on Deoxys, was enough to make the point.

It helped when Deoxys said quite frankly that the problem had not been a problem in space but was a problem now and Deoxys itself was doing quite badly out of the whole thing, but had been neglecting to complain about the headache out of manners.

Then Clefairy raised her hand.

"Par curiosité, quelle est votre solution au problème des trois corps?" she asked.

Deoxys regarded her.

In dealing with trajectories of objects in space, I tend to use Future Sight, the Psychic-type said. It is not infallible but it saves a great deal of hard thinking.

"Ah!" Clefairy said, nodding. "Je vais essayer!"

"Why can't I understand Clefairy?" Solana asked. "I can understand everyone else. Including the space alien."

Are there non-space aliens? Deoxys inquired. Are there entities from space that are not aliens? Unless both of these is true then the phrase 'space alien' is redundant.

"I guess you could have an alien like an Elgyem which hatched in Unova?" Ash suggested. "Or a Cleffa, too… and I don't know about the other one. Do Minior count as aliens?"

So it is for clarity, Deoxys decided. That is an acceptable reason for redundancy.

"I'm glad you think so," Ash said.

Ah! Deoxys added, straightening. The headache has ceased.

"They're right," Swablu said. "I don't feel dizzy any more!"

"And I've stopped picking up interference," Pikachu nodded. "So that's all of us."

"Well, let's hope it's stopped permanently," Solana frowned. "It must have been caused by something. I've accepted it wasn't Deoxys, but that just means something else caused it."

"This means that I can get back to teaching Manaphy his dance, right?" Croconaw checked.

"We should get back to that, you're right," May agreed.

"...did you say Manaphy?" Solana repeated. "How did I miss a Legendary Pokémon?"

"Analysis completed," Zygarde reported, loping over from where they'd been focusing. "Conclusion: had the disturbance not vanished I would have been able to localize it. I am almost annoyed."

Still concerned, Solana agreed to stay for dinner, at least unless Ranger HQ turned up something urgent.

Entei said that if it was urgent enough he could give her a lift, assuming he was still conscious after Heracross resumed punching him into trees, but as it happened it was still an hour or so before they were going to eat when Rayquaza flew back into camp.

"I'm not going to want as much dinner tonight," she said. "I ate earlier."

"You did?" Ash asked, interested. "Did you meet someone?"

"No, but I felt a weird meteorite," Rayquaza answered. "It was making one of these disturbance things that Big Rayquaza said meteorites sometimes do, and I was hungry, so I ate it. I'm supposed to get meteorite in my diet anyway… was that okay?"

She clasped her forehands together, and Ash patted her on the head.

"You did a great job," he told her. "I'm pretty sure that meteorite was causing all kinds of problems! And like you say, you do need to have meteorite in your diet anyway, you're a growing dragon."

Rayquaza smiled, a little shyly, then wrapped herself around Ash's torso again.

Solana got out her Styler and started typing up an extra page to her mission report.

AN:

It's convenient when problems turn out to be edible.