Ash stuck around long enough to hear Professor Juniper's heart-felt apology to Professor Oak for ever having doubted him, then said that he'd decided to give the Unova gym challenge a go and set off into the wild.

"So, any idea what the closest gym is?" Pikachu asked. "Is that even the one we want to start with? We went straight past in Kanto."

"You're right," Ash agreed. "I think it's, uh… Striaton?"

He checked his phone, who flashed up a map.

"But there's not much point hurrying," he added. "If we hurried, we wouldn't have the chance to see the new Pokémon here – the Pokémon in Unova are mostly different from the Pokémon we've seen so far. That means that as far as they're concerned here, you're an exotic Pokémon!"

"Even before he electrocutes something that shouldn't be electrocuted," Mew said, flitting in before landing on his shoulder in the form of Delta Purrloin. "So Zorua gave the game away, and I decided it'd be okay to hang around in this form for a bit anyway."

"He did?" Ash asked. "I could swear I saw you and Purrloin in the same place… oh, wait, I get it! Zorua was Purrloin when you deliberately appeared alongside Purrloin, but the rest of the time it's been you. And you taught him Shadow Force."

He frowned. "So, does that mean there's a real Delta Purrloin around somewhere?"

"I dunno, probably," Mew shrugged. "It's kind of hard to tell because, you know, mutations, random…"

He waved his sharp tail. "And they might or might not be this Type. There might even be more than one different sort of Delta Purrloin… anyway, there's a meeting you need to have, so I've got a few directions to give! First, turn left in three hundred metres."

"I am fairly sure that giving directions is my job," the phone objected.

"Yeah, but also, consider," Mew-Purrloin said. "I'm a cat nav."

Ash's phone was silent for a long moment.

"How often, exactly, do you make major decisions based on the availability of a good pun?" Pikachu asked.

"Data suggests: quite often," Ibid contributed.

"Okay, before you say anything, it's because of ecosystems," 'Purrloin' said, firmly. "You can't just have all the tiny bird Pokémon in the world be Pidgeys, it doesn't work that way, because it just doesn't."

She folded her arms. "Also I got bored."

"I'm grateful, though, because it means there's so many different kinds of Pokémon," Ash said. "Like those Deerling, over there. Hi!"

He waved.

One of the Deerling raised an uncertain hoof. "Why do you have an oddly coloured Purrloin on your shoulder?"

"That's a shiny Pokémon, obviously," another Deerling said. "We already talked about shiny Pokémon earlier when we met that other shiny Pokémon. Remember?"

"I know about shinies, sis," the first Deerling replied with a huff. "What I mean is, firstly, how is the Purrloin on his shoulder, because it's leaning over in a way that would make it fall off, secondly, why is it on his shoulder, because it can probably walk, and thirdly, shush."

"This is one of my Pokémon," Ash explained. "Well, actually they're about… two, three, four… I think I've caught you at least seven times, each time in a different disguise?"

"Yep!" the ersatz Fairy-type agreed. "Also, I'm a ghost. At the moment. So that's how I'm leaning like this."

"Hey!" someone called. "That's not how you catch Pokémon!"

"It isn't?" Ash replied, looking up as a girl came into the clearing. "Oh, right, are the rules different in Unova? Do you know that because you're a Zoroark?"

The girl blinked. "What? No, I'm not a Zoroark! Why would you even think that?"

"Your hair," Ash pointed out. "I met a Zorua a couple of weeks ago who showed a fluffy tail whenever he turned into a human, so I thought maybe a Zoroark sometimes did the same thing."

"Scanning," Ibid announced, from Ash's pocket. "Scan complete. Pokémon data returned: Axew."

"Oh, cool!" Ash said. "I didn't know Axew could do that!"

"No, Axew is in my hair," the girl said, rummaging around and producing the spiky little dragon. "I'm Iris – I'm a Dragon Tamer! And don't you know anything about how to catch Pokémon?"

Pikachu started laughing, and just about managed to catch himself before falling off Ash's other shoulder.

"You battle them first to weaken them!" Iris went on. "Then you throw a Pokéball! You don't just stand there talking at them."

"Really?" Ash asked. "Huh. Most of the time when I catch a Pokémon it's because they agreed to come with me, and any exceptions I'd just let them go straight away if they wanted to leave, but Rayquaza has always been pretty insistent."

Iris blinked, did a double-take, then her jaw dropped.

"You're Ash Ketchum!" she said. "I didn't – but – since when were you in Unova?"

"We arrived just earlier today!" Ash replied.

Then a Zekrom landed in the clearing.

"I hereby announce dibs!" it said, pointing at Ash. "Hero of Ideals, it'd be Ideal if you could battle me before capturing me!"

"Wow," Iris said, taking a step back. "My lecturers were not kidding..."

Despite Zekrom's proclamation, things didn't immediately move on to the battle he wanted.

First Mew had to check if this Zekrom was the same Zekrom who'd already said they wanted to work with Ash – it was, and the 'Dibs' was an official confirmation rather than the actual incident in which Zekrom called dibs – and then Ash had to work out who to battle Zekrom with.

"What do you think?" he asked. "Zacian, Zorua, Aten who's also a Zorua, or Zapdos?"

"...those are all Pokémon whose species begin with Z," Zekrom observed. "Is it because of that, or another reason?"

He flared his wings. "I'm not objecting. I'm just asking."

"I would also be willing to take part in battle," Zygarde said. "I have the appropriate initial and this would not be an official League sanctioned battle, so therefore I would be able to take part."

"Is this actually happening?" Iris asked. "Because this seems just crazy."

"Yes, it is happening," Ibid informed her. "I am providing translation duties because I am available."

"Translation-" Iris began. "I thought Ash could speak to Pokémon, how come he'd need translation?"

"He does not," Ibid explained. "But you do. I am being helpful, but if you prefer, my phone colleague could take over the translation task?"

"I'm good with you doing it, thanks," Iris said.

"All right!" Zekrom declared. "We are ready!"

"Let's do this, Zygarde!" Ash said. "Open with Dragon Rage!"

"Woof," Zygarde barked, sending out a torrent of Dragon Rage.

Zekrom's turbine keened as he punched the attack, blowing it away. "Hah! You'll have to do better than that!"

"All right," Ash replied. "Thousand Arrows, and Earthquake! Zygarde, stay on the move as well!"

Zekrom went whunch into the ground as Thousand Arrows connected and forced him down, then sprang back into the air before the Earthquake hit. A Dragon Pulse flashed out, and Zygarde jumped smoothly over it before shooting out a second Thousand Arrows as they landed.

That hit Zekrom as well, but the Dragon-type cracked his knuckles.

"All right, you may be a Ground type, but we'll see about that," he said.

Ash raised his hand.

"If you're here to battle to potentially join my team, wouldn't it be ideal for you to lose?" he asked. "I'm not saying you should, I just want to check."

Zekrom considered that, and froze in place.

Zygarde considered their fellow Dragon-type for several seconds, then padded to Zekrom and tapped him with a paw. That made the Deep Black Pokémon wobble, then fall over backwards.

"I've been defeated," Zekrom said.

"Huh," Ash considered. "I guess you're right, Iris, turns out you do need to battle Unovan Pokémon before throwing a Pokéball at them!"

Zekrom turned out to have Opinions about what type of Pokéball he went into, eventually opting for a Luxury Ball because it was the ideal choice, and once that was all sorted out Iris finally decided she just had to say something.

"So… how many Dragon types do you have?" she asked. "I heard something about you having over two dozen Dragonite, but that can't be right… can it? How would you even do that?"

"Well, I was trying to catch a Tauros," Ash replied. "But Raikou got in the way, and I ended up running out of Pokéballs before I could try again."

Iris looked completely baffled. "That… how?"

"Oh, that didn't really answer your question," Ash realized. "It was mostly that Dratini really like having their snouts booped."

This didn't seem to help, but Ash moved on. "They've got a kingdom now, but it's mostly made up of Dragonites and some others. Then, uh… I'm not going to count Dracozolt because they were Mew… oh, does a Charizard count as Dragon enough?"

"Charizard? I've heard of Charizard!" Axew said. "They're really dragonish non-dragons, right?"

"Well, I got him as a Charmander, but he didn't evolve into Charizard until a bit later," Ash said. "Then, uh, there's Zygarde, they've been following me around for a while but they're not formally one of my Pokémon. And after that the next two are Latias and Latios, I actually met them when I was nine… that might be when I met Zekrom too, depending on if he's the same Zekrom, but anyway Latias and Latios joined my team when I visited their home town."

"Hold on, hold on," Iris said. "How did you meet three Legendary Pokémon when you were nine?"

"I met a lot of Pokémon before I started my Pokémon journey," Ash said. "Didn't you? Mew was the first, but my actual starter is Pikachu."

"What are we even witnessing," one of the Deerling breathed.

"Oh, speaking of me!" Mew-Purrloin said, jumping back up to Ash's shoulder. "We haven't actually had that meeting I set up yet. But keep going, there's only a few dragons left."

"Right," Ash agreed. "So Rayquaza was originally Meta Groudon, but Ho-Oh reincarnated her and ended up with Rayquaza… and then the last one on the list is Gible, who I taught to fly, because you already saw how Zekrom joined. Unless Phone Arceus can go Dragon type."

"Call me Arc," the phone requested.

Iris sat down hard on a convenient tree trunk.

"I… what?" she asked. "I spent years thinking my lecturers were making it all up… do you seriously mean they were understating it?"

"Understating what?" Ash said.

"So!" Mew said. "Now we're done with that, it's time for that meeting!"

A shiny Keldeo trotted out of the trees.

"Mew said that you were one of those trainers who's good to Pokémon," he said. "I'm not sure about that, but I'd like to see what they mean before I make any decisions."

A Pidove landed on his mane.

"Ignore that," he added. "It happens all the time. I'm like a magnet for them."

"So, obviously, this isn't the Keldeo you already know," Mew clarified, as the shiny Legendary started asking how Pidove was doing today. "I figured that Zygarde is already a tag-along, and so is Marshadow, so another one wouldn't be a problem!"

AN:

The Z-team.