"Hmm," Alain said, leaning back against a rock. "Something's not right… Charizard."

Charizard raised his head.

"We're being watched," Alain said, and rose to his feet. "Show yourself."

"Oh, it's just me," a girl said. "I'm Mairin… I saw your battle, earlier, against that lady with the amazing Absol."

"You saw my battle?" Alain repeated, and exchanged a glance with Charizard. "...are you challenging me?"

"No, no, no!" Mairin said as fast as she could. "I'm not challenging you at all! I'm just a beginning trainer, Chespie is the only Pokémon I've got. I just… that was a really impressive battle. I've never seen Mega Evolution happen in person before."

Alain reached up to his Charizard, who rumbled in happiness. "My name's Alain," he introduced himself. "Charizard and I want to find out more about the mysterious phenomenon of Mega Evolution, and so I'm seeking out trainers who can Mega Evolve their Pokémon. I hope to be able to defeat all the different Mega-Evolved Pokémon out there."

"Wow," Mairin said. "That's quite a big goal! I wouldn't even know where to start with something like that."

Alain snorted. "I started with a Charmander, which I at least knew was a Pokémon that could Mega Evolve, though I had a lot of information as well because I used to be one of Professor Sycamore's assistants."

"You know a lot more than me about that, I bet," Mairin told him, frowning. "But what about Ash Ketchum? Him I have heard of, and I know he's got a lot of weird Pokémon… that's got to include some Mega Evolving ones, right?"

"Ash Ketchum," Alain agreed. "I certainly haven't forgotten about him, no… in fact, he's probably going to be the final challenge to test just how well I've managed to learn the secrets of Mega Evolution. He's just got so many Pokémon that can Mega Evolve, including at least three fundamentally unique Mega Evolutions… he's got an understanding of Pokémon that I hope to some day equal, and which may not be possible to better."

"Chesp!" Chespie gasped.

"That's so dramatic!" Mairin agreed. "How do you think he does it?"

"I'm not sure," Alain replied. "But his dedication must be amazing. There's probably no Pokémon trainer alive who's as focused as him."

"All right, let's try and find that shiny Magikarp!" Ash said. "Ready, Silver?"

"Ready!" Silver agreed.

"...no, you've lost me," admitted Rodman, the aquarium creator. "How does a small Lugia help?"

He waved his hand. "I mean, I'm sure that he can help somehow. But you just heard my story and immediately sent him out, without even telling him what to do. What's your plan?"

"Well, finding a shiny Magikarp is going to be easier from underwater," Ash said. "But after that, the important bit is talking to the Magikarp to make sure they know what they're getting into. It'd be silly to try and keep any Magikarp under conditions it doesn't like, because it'd just get angry and evolve and destroy the whole building, and my friend Misty's Shiny Gyarados is much stronger than normal so that could be a thing with all shiny Gyarados. So it's no good to just fish them up without asking, right?"

"That is… a good point," Rodman confessed. "What then?"

"Well, then, if Magikarp wants a bit of a battle, then Silver can use Twister to throw them out of the water so that your Clauncher gets a shot at them," Ash went on. "Otherwise, we can just bring them over, either to say hello or to join you and join the aquarium!"

"And it's me because I know Dive, which isn't all that common a move for Ash's Pokémon," Silver added. "If you want to come along and watch we could probably get hold of Charizard, though."

"Or you could use my No-Need-for-Water-type-Pokémon-Food-Chinchou-Model-Magikarp-Magnet!" Clemont said, holding up a Chinchou robot.

"I told you not to have coffee before naming the Gear, sir," Bunnelby sighed.

"Let's launch it!" Clemont said, throwing the Gear into the water overarm.

A whole school of Sharpedo jumped over one another to attack it first.

"...well, back to the drawing board," Clemont sighed.

Fortunately for all concerned, the Golden Magikarp – once located – was quite amused by the idea of being in an aquarium exhibit.

It helped that the pool was quite big, and the Golden Magikarp agreed to swim next to the glass regularly unless and until he evolved – at which point doing so wouldn't actually be necessary.

With that sorted out, though, Clemont retrieved the few remaining usable parts from the NNFWTPFCMMM and the friends set off for their next destination.

"Hi, guys!" Alexa called, waving from the back of her Noivern. "I thought it was you!"

Noivern landed in front of them, and Alexa got off. "I saw you from a couple of miles back, and I wanted to see if you were interested in coming with me. I'm doing an article about discoveries at the Fossil Lab!"

"That sounds interesting," Clemont said.

Ash was more interested in Noivern, who'd slowly flopped onto his front. "I thought Noivern was nocturnal?"

"Well, not all Noivern are, but mine is, certainly," Alexa said. "And, you know, a few weeks ago I got to thinking to myself. I said to myself, how would Ash solve a problem like this?"

She smiled. "And I realized! So I taught Noivern Sleep Talk."

Noivern snored.

"He's actually still asleep," she clarified, just in case they hadn't realized. "I just stand behind him and call for Sleep Talk until he gets Fly, and then once that starts the whole thing sort of takes care of itself… anyway, it's not far to go now, so I can let him enjoy his sleep in peace."

"Makes sense to me," Pikachu said. "...wow, it actually does. Sometimes perspective sneaks up on you."

"If it's a fossil lab, then does it bring fossils back to life?" Ash asked. "I've always wondered about those… and about other things to do with fossils, too, but at the moment I'm not sure if there's any fossil labs that don't bring Pokémon fossils back to life."

"I'm sure there are, the technology's still quite new," Alexa told him, recalling Noivern. "Iris had her Archeops, of course… was she a wild one, a natural revival, or artificial, actually?"

"She was artificial," Ash replied. "But I think we saw some natural Archen at one point while teaching her to fly… I guess I assume they're natural or wild, but there could have been a massive Archen escape from a secret Archen reviving lab that was trying to make exotic pets or something."

Alexa laughed. "Now that would be a scoop!" she said. "Oh, and Serena, how are you getting on?"

"It's been great!" Serena replied. "Fennekin and I are really getting to be in tune with one another."

Fennekin waved her tail. "Yep!"

When they reached the lab, a researcher called Thaddeus introduced himself to them, and then showed them the room where they had large numbers of fossils neatly arranged and categorized by origin, presumed species and a few other factors.

"What we've been focusing on here is – well, I'll show you," Thaddeus said. "I'll take you to the back room, but you'll need these first."s

He handed out winter coats.

"Humans are sometimes a little annoying," Zygarde stated. "We are in the south of Kalos, it is a lovely day, and they have invented freezing weather."

"Well…" Thaddeus began, not quite sure how to respond to that. "I suppose you could always go back in your Pokéball?"

"Zygarde doesn't have one of those," Ash replied, already getting his bag down. "Let's see… here we go! Here's your warm weather gear from Dawn's Mom!"

"Thank you," Zygarde stated, and there was a flash of green light as they disintegrated into Core Form and a large collection of Cells before reforming again inside the warm coat.

"That was cool!" Bonnie said. "Or not cool, but it looked great! It's like one of those transformation sequences they do in cartoons on TV!"

Zygarde looked quite pleased with itself.

"Here we go," Thaddeus said, opening the door, and revealed a huge refrigerated room with plants and an icy river and several large slabs of rock.

"This is a remarkable artificial habitat," Alexa praised. "I assume it must be for a Pokémon that only lives in cold weather?"

"That's quite right," Thaddeus said. "It's actually the main focus of our research right now. We're trying to find out about the social behaviours of Amaura and Aurorus, so our first two revivals were one of each species. We're hoping to eventually have a whole herd here, but for now it's just the two of them…"

Ash frowned. "You could just ask, right?"

"Well, that's the problem," Thaddeus replied. "You see, we're trying to avoid contamination with human expectations of behaviours. So if we teach Amaura and Aurorus the meanings of enough words that they can answer the questions, they might not quite answer the same way they would in the wild. It's all about observation."

"I observe that there is an Amaura over there," Zygarde said helpfully, pointing with their green paw. "And an Aurorus, as well."

The Aurorus approached, slowly, then bowed their head.

"Guardian of nature," they said.

"...what's going on?" Thaddeus asked. "Did someone teach Aurorus to speak since yesterday? Because that's still science but it's not the science we were planning on…"

"No, that's Lokoko!" Bonnie replied. "She's translating for us!"

"Please wait," Zygarde requested. "Running search."

They tilted their head. "Archive memory search still running. I assume you have seen one of my Ten Percent Form constructs before?"

"Yes," Aurorus confirmed. "When I'd just evolved to Aurorus, before my daughter was born… you turned up and then changed shape into some kind of serpent. You spent most of the time complaining about how cold you were in between stopping a rampaging Camerupt, I think."

"Found," Zygarde said. "I apologize for the language I used."

Thaddeus started muttering similar language about how his pen was too frozen to take notes.

Walking along the Cyllage beach the next day, Ash flicked through Arc's screens.

"Something up?" Serena asked. "You seem quiet."

"I'm wondering who to use when I challenge the next gym," Ash explained. "I want to make sure my newer Pokémon and the ones who need more development get it, but I also don't want to miss out on some of the members of my team who might need it… any ideas?"

"Well, I'd say you might need to get another Pokémon, but I've still only got Fennekin," Serena said. "I'd love to have the kind of team you have – large, full of variety and they all clearly love you – but that's not really something I can make happen and none of the Pokémon we've met yet have really fitted me."

She shrugged. "I'm not sure what I'm trying to say, but I'm sure you'll work out what to do, Ash."

"Thanks!" Ash replied brightly. "I hope I do too!"

Then someone waved.

"Excuse me!" called the man. "We'd like your help with something!"

"Oh, sure!" Ash replied.

"Actually we meant Clemont!" the woman said. "If you're willing to help too that would be good, but what we want to do is to explore underwater and that's something that might need one of his machines."

"Of course!" Clemont said, tapping a few controls, and robotic arms began taking things out of his backpack. "What kind of Gear do you want? Perhaps a going-under-the-water-safely device?"

"Well, that's the thing," the man said. "We're not sure quite what kind of machine would work best… you see, there's some tremendous water currents off shore, and what we'd like to do is to confirm whether the wreck of the Cussler is out there."

"Oh, I heard of that!" Bonnie said proudly. "My teacher said that it hit an iceberg, and it was lots and lots of work to get all the people off before it sank. There were lots of Pokémon doing it."

"That's right," the man agreed. "I should introduce us – I'm Eddy and that's my wife, Lindsey. We're underwater archaeologists."

"Hmm," Clemont said, thinking. "So you don't need a Gear for going under the water safely, because you probably already have a submarine. What you need is something that can tell you if the water currents are safe, right?"

He was already rummaging in his backpack. "Just give me a minute, I've got just the thing… no, that's not it… aha!"

With a flourish, Clemont pulled out a TM case.

"...I'm not sure I understand," Eddy admitted.

Clemont opened it. "This one's Dive, and this is Whirlpool," he explained. "Is something wrong?"

"Well, we actually don't have any Pokémon that could learn those moves," Lindsey said. "Or at all."

"Then I know what you need," Serena decided.

She examined Ash for a moment, then pulled a watch off his wrist. "Here you go!"

The watch went poof into Mew.

"Well spotted!" she said. "I thought it'd take way longer for anyone to find me there! And yes, I do know both Whirlpool and Dive!"

"I… can't actually argue with that one," Lindsey decided.

"You know, you could get a Rotom, and install them on the submarine," Ash added. "That way you could teach the submarine moves, like Dig, or Fly! Or Dive, but I guess if a submarine didn't already know Dive it'd be a supermarine."

AN:

Focused in one way, I suppose.