Totodile flicked his claw back and forth. "A lot of it's about rhythm!"

He turned to walk sideways for a few steps, so he could continue addressing Phanpy. "So obviously they're Pokémon moves, they wouldn't have the special extra effects if they weren't, but mixing them into an actual fighting style and dodging and stuff is all about good rhythm! You move when you need to move, and that means you don't have to interrupt what you're doing – or that's how it works for me, anyway!"

The Water-type inspected Phanpy. "I guess you're more about rolling around?"

"That's not the only thing!" Phanpy said proudly.

She raised her trunk, and blew out a little shower of sparks. "I'm going to learn how to do attacks with my trunk, too! That way I can hit something that's a long way away!"

"And it means you'll have options to deal with Water, Ice and Grass types, too," Ash pointed out. "Those are most of the Pokémon you need to watch out for, so it's good to have an option for them."

Phanpy nodded seriously, and Brock chuckled.

"It seems like every Pokémon that hatches from an egg is different," he said. "And with Pokémon you meet after they hatch, you can sort of write it off as different experience, but with Togepi and Zorua and Phanpy… they've been different all along, and you don't need to understand them to tell. It's nice to see."

"Ooh!" Phanpy announced, jumping forwards and rolling off, and Ash followed at a jog. "I think I spotted another shiny stone!"

"Are Mega Stones just everywhere, then?" Misty asked, a few minutes later, as Totodile finished using Water Gun to clean off the marble-like stone and Ash inspected it. "Or is it Ash's generalized crazy luck going on?"

"It could be your crazy luck, Misty," Brock told her. "It's not me because I wasn't with the group."

"Ash was friends with a Mew at age six," Misty countered. "It's clearly him. And now we've got two Mega Stones we can't identify, to go with the one that we know is Charizardite X."

Ash shrugged. "Actually, Charizard still has that one… it doesn't make much sense for me to carry it around, right?"

"...you've got a point," Misty conceded. "Anyway. Now we've got two Mega Stones we can't identify."

Totodile reached up to recall himself, then paused, and wobbled slightly.

"Uh…" he began. "I don't feel very well…"

"Totodile?" Ash asked, crouching down. "Is something wrong?"

"I feel bad too," Phanpy complained.

"Hurts," Togepi added.

"I think it's getting to all of us," Pikachu said. "All the Pokémon… except…"

He reached up to his head. "I can't concentrate…"

"Zygarde, do you have any idea what's going on?" Ash asked. "Is it affecting all Pokémon?"

"I do not feel any impairment," Zygarde told him.

Brock's Crobat and Pineco came out of their Pokéballs at the same moment, and Pineco squeaked.

"Ow! Okay it is painful!" she declared, and returned herself.

"It doesn't affect Pokémon in Pokéballs," Ash realized, and recalled Phanpy. He was about to recall Totodile as well, but the little Water-type clenched his fists and shook his head.

Then, with a flash of light, turned into being a Croconaw.

"That was easy," he said, a bit puzzled, then grimaced. "Ow ow ow, still hurts…"

Croconaw vanished back into his Pokéball with a little flicker of light after that.

"Hurts, mama…" Togepi said.

"I've got you," Misty told the Fairy-type. "I've got you. You'll be okay… you can go back in your Pokéball, okay? That'll make you safer…"

"Hurts," Togepi reiterated. "But… feel safe..."

Light started to swirl around her as well. Then it faded, and Misty was holding a Togetic.

Her arms glowed with a bright blue light, and energy formed around her forehead as well.

"I… feel a bit better now," Togetic said, breathing evenly. "It's still hard to concentrate..."

"I think this is something to do with Pokémon evolution," Ash said, cradling Pikachu. "Pikachu can still evolve, and he's suffering from it. So can Togetic, even with her Safeguard… and Phanpy and Pineco, too. And Croconaw said he found it easy to evolve. But Crobat's fine, and so are the Legendaries."

He looked down at his starter. "You're sure you don't want to go back in your Pokéball?"

"Absolutely," Pikachu insisted. "Whatever this is… whatever it is, we're going to solve it. Together."

"I think we need to work out what Pokémon we can use," Misty said. "Togetic, sweetie… are you sure you want to stay out?"

Togetic nodded firmly, keeping her Safeguard up. "I'm sorry I can't help anyone else, mama. But I can watch for danger."

"Any of the Legendaries are going to be okay," Ash said. "But, uh, I tried to get in touch with the lab and it didn't work. There's some kind of interference going on."

"Then we need to stop the interference," Pikachu insisted, clenching his paws into fists. "And then I'll be able to help out too!"

There was a loud roar in the distance.

"...I… think that was a Gyarados," Misty said. "Wait, aren't we pretty close to the Lake of Rage?"

She winced. "Gyarados aren't going to be affected once they evolve, but they're already really irritable…"

"Well?" Tyson asked. "Is it working, Professor?"

"We only detected a few Pokémon evolving in the Lake of Rage," Sebastian replied. "It's not clear whether it's forcing Pokémon to evolve or if it's just making it easier – or it could be a coincidence. There's not enough data yet."

He pointed. "That one, though – that red Gyarados. That definitely evolved after we turned the equipment on… and it's easy to pick out. We should capture it and run tests."

Tyson nodded. "I'll get right on it."

He turned to the door of the lab, but then there was a wham which made the whole door shake on its rollers.

Wham. Wham.

Then the door slowly slid open, as a Dragonite forced the doors.

"Lance," Tyson hissed, then frowned. "No. It's that Ketchum boy."

Sebastian sighed. "How tremendously inconvenient. Now we can't tell if it was having any useful effect."

"If what was having any effect?" Ash asked, standing in the lab door with his Dragonite bobbing up and down in the entrance. "And how come the doors were closed?"

Tyson blinked a few times, then rubbed his forehead.

"This is a secret laboratory," he said. "How do you not understand that?"

"It's not underground, though," Ash replied. "It's just a big building by the side of the lake."

"That's the point – it's called hiding in plain sight," Tyson told him. "I can't believe we're trying to recreate whatever it is you do."

Behind his back, he made a hand signal – hoping the local grunts would remember it.

He needed some kind of force multiplier to help with a Dragonite – his Fearow alone wouldn't be remotely enough, even if the Pikachu was out of action.

"Whatever it is I do?" Ash repeated. "...you mean, uh, get badges?"

"Do you have any idea how useful it would be to be able to make Pokémon evolve on command?" he asked. "This whole project started after your little display in the Indigo Conference."

Ash just tilted his head, confused.

"Are you real?" Tyson demanded. "When your opponent's Pokémon and your Pokémon kept evolving! How do you not even understand that what you do is unusual?"

He swallowed his rage, and made the hand signal again for emphasis.

All Tyson needed was to stall the Ketchum boy until lab security was ready.

"It's that red one!" Misty said, raising her voice over the windstorms as half-a-dozen Gyarados battled. "I just saw – a Magikarp evolved into Gyarados, but it didn't join the fighting until that red one came over!"

Brock shaded his eyes (presumably) and looked out as well.

"I think you're right!" he agreed. "What are we going to do, then?"

"I've got Corsola and Starmie, and an excellent knowledge of Water types," Misty said. "And you've got Crobat, and Zygarde is with us… and I've got Psyduck."

Brock blinked. "But… Psyduck isn't fully evolved."

"I know," Misty agreed. "And Psyduck… I won't make you do this. But it would really help."

She held out the Pokéball, and Psyduck emerged with a flash.

He clutched his head, went "Psyyyyy…" and stared out at the lake.

Then Psyduck used Thunder.

There was a bang that echoed off the lake, and most of the rampaging Gyarados went down. The red one didn't, and it turned about before fixing a glare on the hillside Misty and Brock were standing on.

Then it charged.

"Starmie!" Misty called.

Starmie zipped out in front of her, core glowing, and flickers of psychic energy drew a symbol in the air. It hung there for a moment, flashed, and spread out into a Protect screen.

When the Red Gyarados used Hyper Beam, the attack bounced off in a flare of sidescatter – though the impact drove Starmie back several inches simply from the sheer impact energy.

"Crobat!" Misty added. "Try and poison it – that'll weaken it! Corsola, Stone Edge! Psyduck, keep hitting it with whatever you can!"

Zygarde planted their green forepaw, and howled. A thousand streamers of green light focused in on the Red Gyarados, and when they hit it was pinned in place for a moment – then Zygarde did something else, as well, something that sent a ripple along the ground and erected walls of earth and rock in the lake.

Then Psyduck hit the Red Gyarados with a Rock Wrecker, just to make sure it didn't put too much effort into working out how to escape.

"I literally cannot believe you're this dense!" the rocket guy said.

"Heh, you haven't known him," Pikachu said, still in Ash's arms.

"Hey," Ash protested. "Suicune once said that it wasn't that I was dense, it's just that I had a completely different developmental environment."

A slight blur went across from the general shadows around the lab, to Dragonite's bobbing shadow, to Ash's.

"Machine broken," Marshadow said.

"Oh, yeah, and the other thing is that sometimes things make sense based on, uh, information you don't know," Ash added. "Like how when I order Pikachu to electrocute a Ground type, it seems crazy until he does it. Or how I've been standing here for ages talking because it gave Lokoko a chance to find out what was going on!"

The doctor guy blinked. "Who's Lokoko?"

"That would be me," a Ninetales said, appearing out of thin air next to him. "Hello."

"Damn it!" the trainer snarled. "Fearow, get that Ninetales!"

Pikachu Thundershocked the Fearow out of the air almost as soon as it emerged.

"That whole delay was worth it for that one moment," Pikachu declared, as Tyson's eye twitched.

"Phew," Misty said, exhaling.

Her whole team – including Wartortle, who'd come out to sub-off once Psyduck's headache had faded and he'd needed to switch to Sleep Talk – were in various states of exhaustion or near-collapse, but they'd done it. The Red Gyarados had been subdued, and without anyone getting hurt.

Well… except the Red Gyarados, technically. And her Pokémon had all taken a few glancing blows.

"What do we do now?" she asked, looking over at Brock.

"Well…" Brock began. "Honestly, the safest place in the country to keep that Gyarados is probably the place where we can pretty much guarantee there will always be at least one Legendary Pokémon."

Misty thought about that.

And… weirdly, it wasn't as scary as she'd have thought.

She took out a Pokéball, then paused.

"...we should probably let Professor Oak know first, though."

"I think that's all of them," Ash said. "Right?"

"I did not see anyone else," Lokoko agreed.

"Right," Ash frowned. "So… we need to get the police, I think?"

"Ooh, look!" Dragonite said, pointing. "I think someone's coming!"

It was only a few seconds after Dragonite had pointed that the shape went from a dot in the sky into a visible Pokémon, and then into another Dragonite that swept down to land just in front of them.

Lance swung down off his Dragonite's back.

"I'm guessing you already sorted it out, then," he asked.

"Yeah, though Brock and Misty went to deal with the rampaging Gyarados," Ash replied. "I guess that's sorted out too now."

Lance nodded. "Makes sense, they are gym leaders and they've been travelling around with you. Nice Dragonite, Ash."

"Thanks!" Dragonite said, with a big smile. "Hey, Dragonite! We need to compare notes!"

Lance's Dragonite looked confused. "Compare notes about whAARGLE!?"

Lance stepped back a few paces, watching as his Dragonite flailed around in what was technically not a Vice Grip, then shook his head. "I should have known there'd be something… so what was actually going on here?"

Ash glanced at Lokoko. "Do you want to explain?"

"This laboratory was operated by a cell of Team Rocket," Lokoko said. "They don't seem to have been reporting back often, if at all, but their efforts were focused on creating a machine to force Pokémon to evolve. To the best of our knowledge, this machine may have actually worked, but it was extremely painful to unevolved Pokémon."

She swished her tails. "Marshadow destroyed the machine, and I defeated all the guards under the cover of an illusion; Ash then stopped their leader, Tyson, and he and Professor Sebastian are in the building along with their guards."

"Marshadow?" Lance repeated.

Marshadow waved.

Lance rubbed his temples, then chuckled. "Well, you've definitely been a big help – all of you. And-"

Ash's Dragonite tapped him on the shoulder.

"I appoint you an honorary citizen of the Ryuunited Kingdom," he said, then swept Lance up in a hug as well.

AN:

The ironic thing is that an actual Shiny Stone might be useful at this point.