"Hmm," Zygarde said, slowing to a halt and sniffing the air. "Yes, I think this is about right."
"About right?" Ash repeated. "About right for what?"
"I have determined, based on the available evidence, that we are in Kalos," Zygarde said. "Thank you for the lift. Now, on a completely different note, would you be interested in letting me travel along with you?"
Pikachu sniggered.
"You realize that if you hadn't said anything that we'd just have rolled with it, right?" he checked.
"Of course, but then I would still technically be having a lift back to Kalos," Zygarde countered. "I feel it is important to resolve this distinction."
"I'm glad you're still going to be travelling around with us," Ash told Zygarde, crouching down. "You're a good friend, Zygarde."
"Technically I may or may not be many good friends," Zygarde pointed out. "Singular/plural distinctions are confusing under these circumstances."
"It would definitely be strange to not have you around any more," Lokoko contributed. "If you felt the need to leave, I don't think any of us would stop you, but we would be sad."
Zygarde made a pleased noise. "That is the optimal situation."
"I'm confused," Tyrunt admitted. "Isn't Zygarde one of Ash's Pokémon?"
"No, actually," Ash told him. "Zygarde is a friend, who I met back in Johto, and they're not my Pokémon because they haven't decided they want to. But even if they were my Pokémon, they could leave if they wanted to, because that's the point of letting your friends do what's best for them."
"And that is why you have so many Pokémon who are such good friends, Ash," Lokoko told him. "Though being able to understand all of us helps."
"It certainly does," Serena nodded. "Now, should we keep heading for Couriway? Or does Zygarde want a bit of a break first?"
"A break would be acceptable," Zygarde summarized.
While they were having a rest, and Ash was off working with Shaymintwo and Snorlax on the best ways for Talonflame to work with his speed without letting it dictate his whole style, Eevee came walking hesitantly over to his trainer.
"Do you have a moment, Serena?" he asked, raising a paw slightly. "It's not, urgent, or important really, I just wanted to talk."
"Talking is fine," Serena replied. "Do you want it to be private, or are you okay with others listening in? Because if it's supposed to be fully private I'm going to need some set up, to cast a spell so I can understand you fully without help – I'm getting better but it sounds like it might be complicated."
"It's…" Eevee began, paused, then glanced at Lokoko. Something about her seemed to reassure him, and he nodded. "It's fine if Lokoko and your team are listening. It might help, actually."
Serena reached down and stroked Eevee, prompting the Normal-type to tense slightly before forcing himself to relax.
"Poor thing," she said. "You seem more worried than normal today."
"I'm not sure how this is going to go," Eevee admitted, following Serena a little way up the hill with Lokoko padding behind them. "I'm nervous because… um."
Deciding they were far enough, Serena sat down, and motioned Eevee onto her lap.
"I've been feeling for a long time like I wasn't quite the right sort of me," Eevee said, getting into place and flopping over bonelessly. "What Pancham said when we met helped, maybe? Or maybe not? But…"
He blew air out of his muzzle. "I don't feel like me. I feel like someone else."
"Can we help?" Serena asked.
"I don't know how," Eevee replied. "And I don't mean you can't, I don't mean you can, I just… don't know."
He took a deep breath. "I feel like it's just wrong of me to be… well, a he. Does that make any kind of sense?"
The words kept tumbling out of Eevee's muzzle. "And when I met Mew, the idea of just being a boy or a girl was kind of… I was jealous of it but not all of it, so… I don't know what to think."
Serena hummed to herself.
"Thank you for telling me that, Eevee," she said. "There's one of Ash's Pokémon who I think might be good to talk to, to start with. Would that be okay?"
Eevee's ears went flat, and after a long pause they nodded.
"I'll go and get Ibid's attention," Lokoko volunteered.
A few minutes later, Suicune was lying next to them as well.
"I don't have quite the same experience as you," she said. "But I think I can help. There's something called bodily dysphoria, which is when you're not comfortable in your body. Is that what's going on?"
"I…" Eevee stopped, and restarted.
"I don't think so," they said. "Not really. I don't think it's anything about my body, really. It's just that I don't feel like a boy."
Suicune nodded. "I see," she replied. "Now, I'm going to suggest something, all right? We can see how it works."
She turned her attention to Serena. "I suggest you treat her as a girl and see if that helps. It might not, but it's worth trying."
"Sure," Serena agreed. "Do you all think you can remember that?"
Pancham huffed. "So now I'm the only boy on the team. Harrumph, I say!"
"You're not wrong," Ponyta admitted. "That is a logical consequence."
"I suggest that Eevee and I should practice dancing later," Braixen said. "I want to see if she can do a jump onto one of my twigs and use it like a broomstick."
There were tears glittering in Eevee's eyes.
Then Ash arrived.
"Hi, Suicune!" he said, skidding to a halt with Talonflame resting on his arm. "I didn't realize you'd come over here – is everything all right?"
"Eevee was upset," Suicune explained. "I was helping her out."
"Okay, got it!" Ash replied. "Maybe Noibat could work with her to try out different music? We'll talk later, I'm busy right now!"
Ash exited, pursued by Snorlax.
"What do you think of this?" Clemont asked, holding up his latest invention.
The others stopped and looked at it.
"It's a soft toy, isn't it?" Bonnie asked. "That's a Phanpy, like Ash has!"
"Close!" Clemont replied. "Well, actually, correct because I built it into the body of a soft toy because of the intended purpose. But the actual reason I made it is to act as a Patented Helpful And Nice Mega Stone Locator And Excavator!"
"Phanmslae?" Serena tried to say.
"I wanted to call it the Phanpy, but I couldn't make the letters work," Clemont explained. "And then I was too far gone with putting the name on. Well, technically one of my other machines stitched the name on. But I wanted to see if I could emulate Ash's Phanpy and her Mega Stone finding trick!"
He flicked a switch, then put the Phan-gear down and stood back.
It rocked back and forth a bit, spun in a circle, then jumped at Ash.
"Oof!" Ash said, laughing. "Well, I guess it can sense Mega Stones all right, I've got several in my bag!"
"Let me check my notes," Clemont requested.
Some quick programming later, Ash was crouched down in front of the pseudo-Phanpy and holding out each of his Mega Stones in turn.
The Gear's trunk scanned the Mega Stone, then went boop as it registered that one as not being a target, and once he was done Ash stood up again and Clemont hit the same control.
"Now, let's see what happens," Clemont added, and the Phan-gear's trunk scanned back and forth for a moment before it went whizzing off through the forest.
"Follow that toy!" Braixen called.
As it turned out, the Gear not so much found a Mega Stone as found a young woman with her leg stuck in a fissure.
"Oh, thank goodness," she said, brightening at the approach of the group. "Can you help me out of here?"
"Sure!" Ash agreed. "Yveltal, can you help out?"
Ash's Yveltal formed in a flash of white light that condensed into the semblance of bacon, and he waved a wing through the ground around the young woman's foot. It promptly vanished, leaving a larger hole where the leg wasn't trapped, and she stumbled a little before picking herself up.
"Thanks!" she said, with a smile. "I'm Joy, and… I was… um, why is that soft toy trying to bury itself in the ground?"
"I think it's decided that there's a Mega Stone down there," Clemont guessed. "Let's see… um… what remote control frequency did I use…"
While Clemont was trying to log into his Gear remotely, Yveltal just looked down the fissure with icy blue eyes.
Then he folded his wings, stood straight up, and impassively faceplanted into the ground in such a way that the ground dissolved into dust below him and he kept going.
"Is… your Pokémon all right?" the Joy asked. "I don't think I recognize that species, but that can't be normal behaviour."
"Yveltal's just killing the ground," Ash replied. "So he's not really hitting it, not properly. And how do you talk about normal behaviour when there's so few Yveltal? If I've got my numbers right Yveltal is fifty percent of Yveltal."
The Dark-type came back out of the hole, holding the pseudo-Phanpy in one claw and a glittering Mega Stone in the other. The Phanpy toy's trunk was reaching out and scanning for the Mega Stone, but not quite able to reach it.
"Oh, so there was one down there!" Joy brightened. "I wonder if it's an Audinite, that's what I went looking for."
"Hold on, I'll get Diancie to check," Ash said, holding up Arc to take a photo. "She should get back to us in a few minutes… you've got her number, right, Arc?"
"Kalos Central, 151," Arc replied, getting a thumbs-up from Ash. "Sending message."
Diancie confirmed for them that it was an Audinite, then had a chat with Ash for a few minutes about the Gigalitite and how Gigalith was finding it, and after that Joy led them back to her Pokémon Centre.
"You've, probably guessed that I work with an Audino," she said. "And we… don't have the best relationship."
"That can be difficult," Chespin agreed. "When your trainer keeps trying dangerous things."
"Hey!" Clemont protested, weakly.
"I actually mean that, well…" Joy began, then stopped. "No, I won't just tell you, because it'll all end up sounding one sided. It might actually be one sided. So I'll let you talk to us both?"
She opened the door to the Pokémon Centre, letting them all in, then went to her office.
"Audino?" she asked. "I got you something!"
She tried opening the door, only to find it was jammed shut.
"Please open the door," she said.
"One of us has to be responsible around here," Audino replied crossly. "You went off in the middle of opening hours! I didn't even know you'd gone!"
"Hmm," Lokoko said. "This could be a difficult one."
She cleared her throat. "Audino. Thanks to my translation, Joy can actually understand what you're saying. Thanks to my mediation, I think you two can either talk it out or at least have an unexpected chance to have a really good argument."
Audino and Joy had a really good argument.
Then Bonnie pointed out that the group had had talks in the past about how to work on a Pokémon and trainer working together to Mega Evolve, and asked them to put ticks on a list of the types of activity they could do to bond.
"But what about the front desk?" Joy asked.
"Now she thinks about it," Audino grumbled.
"I can get Dragonite to take it over!" Ash said. "His qualification is a bit funny because he mis-read the forms and so he's Dr. Agonite, but he's got a royal appointment and I can help translate. Or maybe Noibat could, that feels like something he should be able to do."
"I won't know until I try!" Noibat said.
An hour later, Joy and Audino had discovered a wholly unexpected shared passion for making balloon animals, and successfully Mega-Evolved Audino after a heart-to-heart about boundaries and the difference between advice and condescension.
It was a day well spent, though Noibat had managed to get his wires crossed and completely mute one of the customers by active-noise-cancellation until they'd realized what was going on.
AN:
Yep, that's what I was always going to do with Eevee. She's canonically female (in the anime) so I thought it was a chance to do a thing.