Ash comes along, wearing a blue uniform.
Once at the base of Tabletop Mountain, Ash and Pikachu sense something.
Ash sighs, "Mew…I know you're there. You can out now."
With a pop!,a white psychic cat appears.
"Mew!" Mew greets, much to the surprise of the others.
"Hi…" Ash smiles.
"Mew mewmew mew!" Mew floats around Ash.
Ash raises an eyebrow, "Really?"
"Mew!" Mew nods.
"Uh…Ash?" Goh asks.
"Mew says they want to play," Ash replies.
"You can understand them?" Danaka asks.
Ash chooses not to answer that.
"…Play?" Horace blinks.
"Yeah," Ash nods, "Why did you think Mew invited humans over for?"
The others are in disbelief at what Ash just said. Was Mew just messing with them?!
"If they want to play, let's play!" Goh declares.
"Mew!" Mew cheers.
"Oh, and Mew?" Ash asks.
"Mew?" Mew tilts their head to the side cutely.
"Try not to kill them," he states.
"Mew~!"
"Uh…what?" Quillon blinks.
Mew wraps its tail around Ash's arm, and teleports them away.
"Pika!" Pikachu face planting onto the ground in surprise as his trainer suddenly left without him.
Getting up, Pikachu dusts himself off before pouting, "Pika…"
"They're probably in the center of the mountain. We should get moving," Quillon sighs.
"Pikachu?" Goh inquires.
"Pi…," Pikachu sighs, "Pi pika," before climbing onto Gary's shoulder.
"This is weird…" Gary mutters as he carries Pikachu on his shoulder.
"Pi pika Pikachu," Pikachu chatters.
"Ash knows more than he lets on, doesn't he?" Danaka asks.
Gary and Pikachu look at each other before grinning, "Oh, you have no idea."
"Pikapi pika chu!"
Then they find out all their tech isn't working, and so they climb the mountain.
Pikachu climbing right by Gary…until a Skarmory dive bombed him with a Steel Wing.
Cheeks sparking with electricity, Pikachu launched a Thunderbolt at the steel bird. Direct hit!
Skarmory backed off and flew away, leftover sparks on its body.
"Thanks Pikachu," Gary smiles.
"Pika!" Pikachu gives him a thumbs up.
Gary and Pikachu climb up to Quillon and Weavile before another Skarmory cut the rope.
In the cave system…
A Groudon appears before them.
Weavile uses Icicle Crash while Pikachu uses Quick Attack and Iron Tail.
Of course, the attacks didn't do much as Groudon retaliates with Precipice Blades.
Weavile's knocked down while Pikachu's still standing strong.
Unexpectedly, Gary swings in on a vine from somewhere, and tosses water at Groudon, causing it to retreat.
"Pi pika?" Pikachu blinks at what Gary just did before sighing, "Pikachu…"
Of course, when they meet up with the others, it's revealed that it was Mew that split itself into two and transformed.
Mew leads them to the center of the mountain, a place much like the Tree of Beginning, except with red crystals… and Ash.
Tapping Ash's shoulder, Mew shows him a vision of what happened.
Ash bursts out laughing, "It seems like I've rubbed off on you, Gary!"
"Ashy!" Gary yells, a bit offended.
"You tried to fight a Legendary yourself. It's valid," Ash shrugs.
Pikachu agrees, "Pikapi pi pika pikachu!"
Gary sighs, "Hopefully, that's a good thing."
After Danaka disables the crystals by accident, chaos ensuing as the wild Pokemon start fighting each other, and Mew was about to launch an electric attack to calm them down.
Of course, Quillon mistook it as Mew going out of control, so he lets Urshifu out to use Dark Pulse.
"Pika pika…chu pika!" Pikachu uses Electroweb on the Dark Pulse, successfully catching and destroying it.
"Mew?" Mew blinks, stopping its attack.
"What're you-?" Quillon was about to ask when Ash's eyes, which had turned piercing blue, glare at him, stopping him cold.
"Grookey, can you get me a leaf?" Ash quietly asks.
"Grookey!" Grookey nods and gets him the leaf.
"Thanks," Ash smiles as he receives the leaf, then begins to blow on it, playing Oracion.
It calms all the Pokemon down, Mew included. Then Ash, his eyes still blue, hands covered in aura, touches the red crystal, reactivating it. A wave of aura lighting up all the other crystals in the area.
The wild Pokemon cheer up after that.
"That's enough playing around Mew," Ash sighs.
"Mew~!" Mew whines like a child.
Ash nods at Mew, who teleports the container out before launching it into the air and destroying it with a Hyper Beam.
Pikachu climbs back onto Ash's shoulder, and Mew softly head butts Ash, red sparks responding to Ash's blue.
"Huh…never seen red aura before…" Ash mutters.
"Mew…"
Gary just shakes his head. Like he expected something like this to happen.
Suddenly, everyone's teleported out, back to the base of the mountain.
"Ash…just what exactly happened back there?" Goh asks.
Ash sighs as he lets Dragonite out and climbs on, "Some things are better left secret, don't you think?"
"Huh?" Goh blinks, "Secret?"
"To protect that place. To protect the world. Some secrets are necessary, don't you think?"
Gary sighs, "Yeah…I get it."
Ash is silent as he flies away, Dragonite going at full speed.